Dumpster Diving and Other IP Analysis Patterns
by Ryan Rozich on August 18, 2008
Software design patterns are generally reusable solutions to commonly occurring problems in software development. It is usually not a direct code snippet or solution, but rather a high level description of how to solve a problem that can be applied to many different solutions. One of the nicest things about software design patterns is that each pattern is named in a way that lets software designers share ideas using a common vocabulary. Software designers and programmers can discuss their use of a ‘decorator’ pattern or an ‘adapter’ pattern without having to dig in to the code level.
So what does any of this have to do with IP analytics? I have recently seen some presentations about named IP strategy patterns. At the LES spring meeting this year for instance there was a presentation on putting together an IP ‘playbook.’ They provided named ‘plays’ such as the ‘pied piper’ strategy for publishing your invention in trade journals after you file a patent application.
At Innography, we have seen many reusable ‘patterns’ of slicing through data for valuable insights. For instance, here is an IP analysis pattern that we have been referring to as ‘Dumpster Diving.’ If you were looking to acquire patents on the cheap you might examine recently abandoned (expired due to failure to pay maintenance) patents. You may catch a discarded patent in a resurrection window where the owner could bring the patent back to active status and reassign it to you. Since we know that it was not valued enough by them to pay annuities on the patent, you might be able to purchase that patent for pennies on the dollar of what it would cost you to acquire it from someone with a stronger negotiating position. This is an example of a re-usable ‘pattern’ for IP analysis.
As IP analysis tools become more mature and prevalent, I expect that we should be hearing more about these analysis patterns and best practices for getting useful business insight out of IP data.
The Real Deal Behind Yahoo and Microsoft: Patents as Financial Assets
by Tyron Stading on August 09, 2008
Last week there was a rumor that Microsoft’s real intention behind acquiring Yahoo is around valuable IP. This article talked about how everyone was scrambling to find out which patent Yahoo held that was so critical to Microsoft. This was interesting on two levels: 1) what IP asset is so valuable to warrant billions of dollars to purchase Yahoo, and 2) what would Microsoft do with that asset if they acquired it?
While I admit this is the first I had heard of the rumors, I can’t say that I’m surprised. Microsoft has been heavily attacked on multiple IP fronts with several hundred of millions to billions of dollars judgments against them. Depending on where they are going in the future, they know the price of not innovating and what it costs to get it wrong.
I think the true take away from the story is that patents are a huge financial asset and are now a large focus of acquisitions. However, the lack of solutions to find, assess and financially analyze patents is the big pain. All of Silicon Valley is scrambling to understand what is so valuable, but they will all fail without some synthesis of business, legal and IP/technical information. For tax accounting, risk analysis, forecasting and financial metrics, patents have been neglected in how companies manage them like true financial assets.
As more stories like Microsoft surface, I predict the evolution of standard industry financial practices for patents. The only way to do so will be to interconnect with financial accounting systems, ERP systems, HR systems, etc to get a completely seamless picture of patents as financial assets. Imagine being able to attribute patents to product revenue, market growth, HR incentives, product planning, SOX compliance reports and tax returns. All other financial assets have been incorporated into this model, and I predict this will become standard operating procedure within the next 5-10 years.
As Microsoft knows better than anyone, the value of Yahoo is not just in operations, but in future markets and protection against new threats. I’m passionate about this future and believe we are at the Early Majority phase where patents will become the first assets to be valued for daily operations.
The Prior Art Paradox
by Doug Miller on July 30, 2008
Admittedly I am not an IP attorney, or for that matter even a patent or IP expert. Having been introduced to the market only a year and half ago, a lot of the concepts and practices are new to me. I have to admit that I find it to be a very fascinating field. One of the things that has really jumped out to me while talking to our customers and prospects is the divide—make that chasm—that exists in corporate attitude and policy regarding whether to allow inventors, engineers, and researchers to view prior art around inventions and projects they are working on. This is one of those issues that it seems there is are only two colors black and white—no shades of grey.
On the one hand, many companies do not want researchers to search for or view any prior art as part of their standard research process. The thinking here, driven it seems by corporate legal, is that by not allowing the inventors to search for or view related art that the company is maintaining “plausible deniability” in the event of any potential future infringement actions. And in fact, current patent legislation fully defines and supports this practice, and to a large extent encourages patent filers to perform minimal prior art searching on their own. I personally think this is one of the flaws in the current patent system and the reason that in many cases prior art is missed by examiners, and is a great argument for the currently being tested patent peer review and the move toward patent legislation reform. (NB: This is my personal opinion and does not represent the views of Innography). This approach represents the traditional view of intellectual property as a defensive only mechanism, still held by a large number of companies.
On the other hand, is the approach that seems to be widely adopted by companies that are embracing innovative strategies and open innovation. Companies in this camp encourage researchers and engineers to fully understand the IP landscape. By exposing them to prior art and related IP from their field as well as other fields and industries, they are encouraging truly innovative and unique approaches to their projects. By seeing what has already been done in the area of their invention, they can invent around existing art to develop truly novel technologies. This approach often identifies opportunities for collaboration through licensing or partnering that can help these innovation-driven companies introduce new products to market faster. In these companies, an innovation approach has replaced the traditional courtroom approach and is leading to truly unique ideas being developed faster than ever before.
My own observation here is that I find the dichotomy to be striking, in fact more so than in any market I’ve ever been associated with. Perhaps it is a very good indicator of a shift in market behavior and attitudes and represents a new way of thinking about intellectual property as the intangible, leveragable asset that it is. Neither approach is right or wrong, but it is definitely an issue that finds companies polarized.
For our purposes as a company, it doesn’t really matter which camp our customers fall in since our product can support/accommodate either approach and we already have customers firmly entrenched in each camp. For my way of thinking the open approach makes more sense—but hey that’s just me!
LSA is Great Theory
by Roji John on July 21, 2008
Well, it may be all right in practice, but it will never work in theory. --Warren Buffett
Since its inception in the 80s (US4839853), many search applications have trended towards LSA as a method for correlating concepts. We often find that what sounds great in theory falls short in practice. In the realm of Intellectual Property (IP), Latent Symantic Analysis (LSA) seems one of these situations.
LSA can be described as a technique using statistical analysis to find associations between terms. Without getting into the mathematics, documents with similar yet uncommon terms are considered semantically close.
In theory, the methodology should be excellent for classifying text without actually reading or understanding it. In fact, for general text as may exist on the internet, LSA can prove useful in finding a handful of very related results.
Our task in the IP arena is quite different. The very specific terms used in these technical documents can often confuse LSA systems. But we also have a key advantage within IP—it’s been classified by an expert examiner at the patent office. That examiner knows precisely the concepts described in the invention.
Many users in this community are already very familiar with the US and IPC classification systems. Each system has its pros and cons. Making both classification systems available and approachable is a basic function that every patent application should provide. In addition, being able to leverage the knowledge embedded in the classification systems is key. When a document has several classifications tagged, they must all be taken into account by the application to accurately contain the invention.
Another problem with LSA is scalability. True LSA requires growing matrices that become difficult to manage and scale with large document sets. Shortcuts can be taken, but queries that are not pre-calculated can take minutes to hours to days. With today’s demand for instant information, users cannot be expected to endure such delays. Instant access to the data is a must.
Finally, LSA provides little room for user control. Its algorithms are static until updated by the provider.
I believe applications that learn from the user are better than ones that try to teach the user. Providing a responsive, accessible and repeatable method to teach the application keeps control in the hands of the expert—you!
These are all commitments we take seriously as we strive to provide the best application possible.
