One way to develop an intellectual property portfolio is to use up-to-date and accurate competitive intelligence on industry competitors as a map to lay out your company’s intellectual property procurement and enforcement strategies.
Competitive intelligence is an ongoing initiative to discover, analyze and use intelligence on competitors’ intellectual property, sales, marketing, regulatory filings and other publicly available information to become more competitive in the marketplace.Compiling competitive intelligence is an ongoing process. Using modern technology as well as more traditional methods, it is less difficult than ever before to keep tabs on industry players.
The Internet is a key source to use to identify intellectual property (both published and issued patents for example), learn about marketing strategies on company websites, and look up publicly available information about products submitted for regulatory approval. There are also subscription services that deliver information. For example, services exist that tabulate marketing and sales data for specific industries.
It is also possible to obtain information through common sources, i.e., vendors, manufacturers and distributors that work with multiple competitors. Lastly, it is possible to collect valuable information at industry trade shows and conferences.After compiling key competitive intelligence data, it is necessary to manage, organize and analyze the information. Some key points to consider are:-Identify trends in the industry (both technology driven as well as market driven)-Keep tabs on intellectual property litigation-Know the scope of your competitors’ intellectual property portfolio-Capture trends in marketing and sales for the industry-Identify key suppliers, distributors and manufacturers who service the industry-Anticipate market introduction of new products based on regulatory filingsUsing competitive intelligence, it is possible to create an intellectual property portfolio for your company.
Specifically, it is important to use competitors’ intellectual property portfolios as a guide to design around existing technology or to develop novel inventions to improve up existing technology. Industry trends in intellectual property can be used to anticipate where you should focus your development of new products. Marketing and sales trends could define the strength and weaknesses of competitors’ brand names and marketing strategies. Knowledge of common suppliers and manufacturers as well as regulatory information will help identify new products before market introduction.
These are just a few examples of using competitive intelligence to scope out a new intellectual property portfolio or tweak an existing portfolio to be more competitive.Competitive intelligence is vital for the development and maintenance if intellectual property portfolios. If you are a smaller company entering a competitive industry, it is more than likely that the major players in the industry are keeping competitive intelligence on your company. Be sure compile your own competitive intelligence. The strength and viability of your intellectual property portfolio will depend on it.
Rodney D. Ryder
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