By Chayan Bhattacharya
University College of Science and Technology
Introduction:
A patent is recognizing the originality of the creation of an individual or an institution or an organization. This right allows the processing, using, or selling of their design or invention in a secured way for a specified period. Patent analytics emphasis on elaborate researching of existing patents or invention. The working method of patent analytics is to examine all the facts and data present in that domain. The patent analytics gives us a synopsis of the existing technologies on which the whole world is competing.
A Brief History:
Initially, before independence, all patents were granted as per the Act VI of 1856 on safeguarding the inventions based on the British Patent Law, 1852. After independence, the Indian Government found difficulties to enforce its patent law because of poor economic conditions. Due to the lack of industrial development, it seems difficult to work under the structure of our patent law because previously maximum patents belonged to foreign individuals. India passed its own patent rules and regulations in 1970, known as the Indian Patent Act., 1970. These rules were amended several times till 20th May 2003 when new Patent laws came into force. Nowadays, all the patent acknowledgment and analytics are done as per the Patents (Amendment) Act, 2006.
Importance of Patent Analytics:
As we see that, a competitive economy is a recent trend worldwide and invention is the main pillar of it. To meet this growing demand patent analytics is very much essential.
- The patent analytics allows an individual to proceed with his invention and further modification by avoiding identical effort. This saves time and money as well.
- Through Patent analytics, it is easier to get an idea of what recent technologies are trending on the global market. Also, it gives us information regarding the extent of competition in modern inventions.
- Patent analytics guides an inventor to rethink and add more ideas & use friendly features in his invention so that it can be commercialized easily.
Types of Patent Search:
Patents, a part of intellectual property, are very much important in those fields where innovations are the measure of success. The patent search aims to gather information related to a suggested invention or patent, whether it is identical to some other registered patent or not. An efficient patent search provides a future road map for further modifications and proceedings of that invention and also saves money and time. There are various types of patent searches. Some of them are listed below:
- Patentability Search: This type of search is performed to know whether an invention is wholly new or not. It governs whether someone already acquired a patent for the same idea or concept before its filing date. That is why it is also known as ‘Novelty search’.
- Freedom to Operate Search: It is also known as a patent clearance search. This is done by the companies before commercializing an invention. It also helps in measuring the risk factors or removing the barriers associated with the invention and proposed further redesign and improvement.
- Landscape analytics: A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, likewise ‘Patent landscape’ is an approach that uses a large set of existing patents, pending or in process, to extract relevant information useful for recognizing a particular field. The advantage of landscape analytics involves guiding an organization’s IP program by providing a list of its competitors, recognizing emerging technology trends within the global market. This assists organizations to evolve by minimizing all the risk factors and creating a plan of action.
- Validity Search: This is almost similar to patentability search but the main difference is, in the case of patentability search the measurement is performed on the invention whereas in Validity searches the assessments are performed on the patent. This type of search is initiated to check whether a given patent is novel or any infringement is associated with the patent. This search is similar to the Invalidity search or Opposition search.
- State of art search: This type of search gives us a broad idea about what modern technologies are available in a particular field rather than a particular invention. The time covered by the state of the art search is normally 3 to 5 years because modern technologies are evolved day by day and replaced by newer ones. It provides a clear interpretation by grouping the patents related to a technical field. It is very important before implementing a corporate strategy because to make a good impact on the market it is necessary to know what inventions or technologies are already present in the industry. It is also known as a collection search and includes both patent and non-patent literature forms.
- Mining Search: This kind of search is carried out to acquire information on a particular entity in a patent field. This search is repeatedly performed on account of an entity that possesses more than one patent and which may therefore not be entirely aware of the opportunity of their collections. Uncovered patent assets in patent mining search may then be strengthened by gathering further information related to the patent asset. It is a repetitive process that needs continuous filtration.
- Non-Patent literature Search: Non-patent literature includes different research proclamations, scientific journals, withdrawn patents, etc. This type of search is very much productive before filing a patent. Because getting a patent is not a child’s play rather it is a cumulative result of a vision, creativity, implementation, time, money, etc. One can get patents based on novelty and beneficial applications.
- Due Diligence Search: This type of search is performed by a buyer to get the total assurance of the product they are buying by verifying all relevant documents.
- Bio-Sequence Search: This type of search extracts every relevant foregoing recommendation for RNA/DNA sequencing and assesses whether it is novel or not. The novelty of such a sequence depends on the unique combination of amino acids or nucleotides.
- Chemical Structure Search: Chemical structure depicts the molecular arrangements and types of chemical bonds present in the compound. The purpose of this search is to bring to light the feature that acknowledges different chemical entities in the patent field. To get an overall idea about what chemical technology is trending in the recent market, different pharmaceutical and chemical industries hire a patent analyst to perform this search.
Future Scope:
Inventions are closely related to patent analytics. Scientists rely on a patent analyst for getting a “go ahead” signal. This opens up an enormous opportunity for job aspirants. In India, various companies offer several positions for patent analysts and hire them. This ultimately strengthens our economy by increasing the country’s NNP (Net National Product).
Conclusion:
Without appropriate patent analytics, an invention is just like a ship without a sailor. So, proper and efficient patent analytics is like a steering that guides an invention. More importantly, it can suggest any further improvement whether needed or not. As soon as we embrace the importance of patent analytics it will help us to take a strong stand in today’s competitive world.