How do you protect your IP Processes?  More importantly, have you ever done a freedom to operate clearance on them?

To kick off this short series of posts, here are a few insights on some of the top ‘patent process’ patent filers, what they are covering, and the most cited patents.

Given my 100 per cent client focus, I couldn’t really do this topic justice but I look forward to further insights from those with more time.

Patents

Top 10 assignees of patents covering patenting processes.

Were you aware of all of these companies and their patenting activities?

How confident are you that your own patent processes do not infringe any of these patents?

Top 10 patents by number of forward citations.

Here is claim 1 of the most cited patent covering patent processes:

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“1. A computer-automated method for rating or ranking patents or other intangible assets comprising:
selecting a first population of patents having a first quality or characteristic;
selecting a second population of patents having a second quality or characteristic that is different from or assumed to be different from said first quality or characteristic;
providing a computer-accessible database of selected patent metrics representative of or describing particular corresponding characteristics of each said patents in said first and second patent populations;
constructing a computer regression model based on said selected patent metrics, said regression model being operable to input said selected patent metrics for each said patent in said first and second patent populations and to output a corresponding rating or ranking that is generally predictive of the presence or absence of said first and/or second quality in said first and second patent populations according to a determined statistical accuracy;
and using said regression model to rate or rank one or more patents in a third patent population by inputting into said regression model selected patent metrics representative of or describing corresponding characteristics of said one or more patents in said third population to be rated or ranked and causing said regression model to output a corresponding rating or ranking based thereon.”

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The more sophisticated a company becomes with its patent analytics, the more patents it will have to dodge, and file.  How are you placed in this landscape?

Obviously if you’re not in the business of inventing new patent processes and analytics, then there’s always the option of in-licensing them and there are plenty of great tools out there already.  Just check that the indemnity for patent infringement for using the tool is going the right way.

Top 5 IPCs

These are only the top 5 of about 100 IPCs represented in this dataset which is surprisingly large.  It’s also interesting to note that the top IPC is 6 times more popular than the fifth most used IPC.

*Notes:

1. Data is from 1969 through to 31 December 2015.
2. Due to the quick data grab, the data is a little ‘dirty’ so I can’t give you certain insights, such as filing intensity over time.  However, I have cleaned out irrelevant records in the data presented here.