Patent analysis using online databases — II. Competitor activity monitoring

Patent analysis has been the subject of academic interest for some 30 years or more, because of its potential as an econometric measure. For industrial information units, which lack the manpower to carry out the extensive and time-consuming calculations involved, it can nevertheless be a valuable aid to decision-making in such areas as acquisitions and divestitures, R&D planning and new product development. Access to online patents databases and simple analytical software allows the information specialist to obtain measures of technological and competitive activity which, if not always statistically verifiable, may help focus attention on underlying trends.This is the second of two papers on the subject, listing techniques, accompanied by examples, which may be used for competitor activity monitoring. Technological trend analysis was covered in the previous paper (part I, World Patent Information Vol. 9, No. 1).     

Patent analysis using online databases—I. Technological trend analysis

Patent analysis has been the subject of academic interest for some thirty years or more, because of its potential as an econometric measure. For industrial information units, which lack the manpower to carry out the extensive and time-consuming calculations involved, it can nevertheless be a valuable aid to decision-making in such areas as acquisitions and divestitures, R&D planning and new product development. Access to online patents databases and simple analytical software allows the information specialist to obtain measures of technological and competitive activity which, if not always statistically verifiable, may help focus attention on underlying trends. This paper lists a number of suitable techniques, accompanied by examples, which may be used to study technological trends. A second paper will be devoted to competitor activity monitoring.     

Patent activity by date of application — Estimating recent applications in the U.S. patent system

Using the number of patents applied for each year can be a useful indicator of the level of inventive effort and a more accurate measure than one based on patent issue date. In the U.S. patent system, this indicator is hampered by the closed examination process, which results in an undercounting of applications field in the recent past.This article describes a method for overcoming this problem by estimating recent patent activity by date of application for U.S. patents. The method uses the historical data for the time between application and issue and can be used to estimate activity by application date up to one year before the date of the most recently issued patents.     

What is Special about Patent Citations? Differences between Scientific and Patent Citations

The emergence of pattent bibliometrics as a new branch of scientometrics necessitates a deeper understanding of the relationship between patents and papers. As this connection is established through the linkage between patents and research papers, one must have a clear idea of similarities and differences between patent and paper citations. This paper will investigate to what extent one can not only apply bibliometric methods to patents but also extend the existing interpretative framework for citations in research papers to the field of patent citations. After pointing out some parallels in the debates about the nature of citations in patents and scientific articles, the paper outlines those parts of bibliometric theory covering scientific citations that could be relevant to patent citations too. Then it highlights the specialties and peculiarities of patent citations. One major conclusion is that the general nature of a common framework for both scientific and patent citations would severely limit its usefulness, but research on academic citations might still be a great source of inspiration to the study of patent citations.