The advantages of patent monitoring across the product lifecycle

In this blog, we will discuss the wide-ranging benefits of monitoring patent activity. We will explore the importance of current awareness programs, and how they can help you identify new inventions in your industry, guide R&D efforts, and provide competitor insight and business intelligence.

The basic aim of monitoring patents is to garner a better understanding of the patenting activities of other entities. The reasons why this is important will depend on what you are monitoring, and where you are in your patent/product lifecycle.

 

One of the main uses of current awareness programs, such as RWS’s IP Monitor service, is to identify new inventions held by others. These programs usually enable you to monitor specific subject matter areas and/or known competitors. Regularly reviewing newly published patent applications in your areas of interest can help to steer your own R&D strategy, helping to ignite that spark of creativity and ingenuity for your own patent applications. It should also prevent wasted cost and effort in generating new ideas that are already in the public domain.

 

Current Awareness programs can run for many years, if not decades, revealing filing trends and potentially even revealing elusive pockets of white space to further direct your R&D efforts.

Why stop at new applications? A specific monitoring program focusing on newly granted patents can offer a different window on other people's IP with equally important and actionable results.

 

Keeping track of newly granted patents can offer competitor insight and business intelligence around the likely direction of new products, revealing the nature of the protection your competitors are seeking. A successful monitoring program provides the results in a timely fashion, ideally within a month or two of the date of grant, if not sooner. The primary focus here is to determine whether any opposition proceedings should be filed after the claims have been reviewed. Even if a full revocation is not possible, an opponent may be equally satisfied if the opposition results in the original claims being amended, such that the claims are re-directed away from the opponent's own innovative niche.

There will also be scenarios where monitoring can take the shape of a more traditional FTO or clearance search update. Any clearance search is out of date as soon as it is completed. If there is a long timeframe between the search and the product launch, it would be prudent to run at least one update before the launch date in case any new publications have emerged since the original search was conducted.

 

There are also situations where you may want to track the legal status of any identified patent references. Has the PCT entered national/regional phase? has the European Patent (EP) been granted with unitary effect/validated in key states? Have the latest renewal fees been paid? These can be important questions to answer for any known references of interest.

 

If patent filing is not a cornerstone of your business, it is still important to be aware of recent publications. This can help you avoid any situations from spilling over outside of the patent office, where any consequences may come with a higher price.

For those with patent portfolios, another use of monitoring is to watch your own patents to see if they appear as cited documents in new patent publications.

 

Knowing who is citing your patents can give an indication of new entrants to your market, and may help you to identify future partnerships/licensing arrangements. Naturally, if the patents could be problematic to your business, oppositions or third-party observations could be filed. The main aim here is to protect the strength of your own portfolio. However, the process may also uncover new ways of solving the problems identified in your applications. This new insight can feed into the evolution of your own initiatives and improvements.

 

Whether you have an active patenting strategy or not, a tailored current awareness program can provide valuable insights to further your endeavours whilst highlighting potential issues before they crop up.

 

If you are interested in building your own current awareness program, or would simply like to learn more, visit our IP Monitor page.