Patent research: the health of the landscape

29-09-2014

Cristopher Flagg

Patent research: the health of the landscape

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Patent landscape research has a direct correlation with economic strength, and the current wellbeing of the practice can be viewed as a measure of the wider recovery from recession, says Cristopher Flagg.

Patent landscape research is the tree frog of the IP ecosystem. For environmental managers, the tree frog is a useful bioindicator of the underlying health of the environment because sudden changes in the population reflect underlying environmental trends.

Similarly, interest in patent landscape research by in-house counsel and business development teams correlates strongly with the general economic health of an industry and, more specifically, to the prevailing IP strategy in it.

In a patent research firm, work flows in and out, representing hundreds of different technology areas, on a weekly basis. Within strict confidentiality protocols, trends are analysed in the technology areas and the types of research requested. As these trends manifest themselves, they can be analysed in an aggregate manner.


patent research; patents

WIPR