3 Ways Patent Data Can Improve Your Competitive Intelligence

Companies today thrive on the strength of their intellectual property (IP) portfolio. And if you want to outpace everyone else in your market, you need an in-depth and accurate understanding of not just your own patents—but those of your competitors as well. To do so, you’ll have to find a way to access and consume high-quality patent datasets that you can use for thorough patent and competitor analyses. In fact, the more accurate, inclusive, and refined your patent data is, the more effective your overall portfolio analytics will become.

Here are 3 ways high-quality patent data can help improve your competitive intelligence.

Accurately monitor and analyze your competitors’ R&D strategies

When you use high-quality patent datasets for competitive intelligence, you can gain deep insights into your competitors’ innovation strategies. Not only can you anticipate the first moves your competitors are making to bolster their IP portfolio, but you can also take proactive measures to adapt to new market situations that your competitors are creating prior to any negative business impacts. Once you know the patent acquisitions of your biggest industry rivals, you can follow up with your own patent investments and acquisitions.

Additionally, you’ll know who your most active competitors are and better understand their strategies; spot new market entrants as soon as they hit the scene; and discover relationships between competitors to know who cooperates with whom, especially in new and emerging markets.

Optimize your IP portfolio

Access to relevant patent datasets gives you the ability to compare IP portfolios in terms of quality and quantity. Your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis becomes much more informed, and you’re able to pinpoint your patent portfolio’s exact competitive strengths and weaknesses, which is vital to knowing what strategies to form and what actions to take to stay ahead of your competition. When you use high-quality patent datasets for portfolio management and optimization, you can also:

• Increase portfolio efficiencies
• Define country filing strategies
• Manage annuity costs
• Uncover pruning potential and cost-saving opportunities 

Better assess risk

It’s long been accepted as a harsh reality that traditional risk assessment is grueling and time consuming. The typical manual-intensive tasks involved in risk mitigation were considered necessary for companies to stay informed of up-and-coming competitors, avoid missing out on technology trends, identify threats from non-practicing entities (NPEs), and more.

Still, traditional risk assessment remained fraught with errors and missteps that result in considerable harm to an organization. For example, if your IP department misinterpreted or outright missed a competitor’s entry into one of your core spaces, the fallout could prove catastrophic to your business in terms of revenue and market strength.

High-quality patent data used in conjunction with a powerful analytics platform eliminates the manual, time-consuming tasks of traditional risk assessment. Especially if the data you’re accessing has been expertly curated and enriched before your analytics tool consumes it (versus the raw and incomplete patent data publicly available), you can:

• Successfully mitigate risks that would otherwise harm your business
• Keep track of competitors in your current, recent, or potential technology fields
• Stay updated on current technology trends
• Become aware of NPEs in your technology field
• Identify the biggest Standard Essential Partners (SEPs) holders in your competitive environment

Of course, these capabilities only scratch the surface of what’s possible with high-quality patent data. Learn more about how you can improve your competitive intelligence with patent data.