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The Benefits of Patent Landscaping

by Matt Troyer, Director of Patent Analytics at Anaqua

Patent landscaping enables attorneys to provide more strategic advice to clients regarding asset protection best practices, managing costs, and maintaining a clear view of their market(s). A systematic process makes a significant difference in the ability to prosecute high-quality patents in the proper technology spaces and to advise clients which research and development efforts are worthwhile.

Patent landscaping allows attorneys to analyze trends in a technology space, use that analysis to assess the practicality of their client’s innovation plans, and help guide them through the evaluation and prosecution process. Methodical patent landscaping also provides deeper market analysis. An exhaustive landscape assessment can reveal principal patent holders in adjacent technology spaces, help determine if they’re actively competing with a client, and provide insight into products that may soon hit the market. Leveraging this data, attorneys can discover underutilized niches within a field that are open for competition-free development.

Thorough patent landscaping can require hundreds of hours of research, special training in analyzing big data, and expertise in the specific field of investigation. For attorneys working on the billable hour, or even fixed fees, it can be difficult to invest the requisite time and effort necessary to perform comprehensive research, analysis, and reporting to determine how best to educate and counsel their clients on the state of the market and where their time and money is best spent.

Landscape reports are invaluable to a corporation; law firms that provide it as a service create significant value for their existing and prospective clients. Sourcing the expertise and time needed to obtain the right data and reports is a matter of looking to a good third-party service. Outsourcing patent landscaping projects gives firm attorneys their time back; time that’s otherwise lost in countless hours of research and reporting or the inability to provide higher-level service to their clients. Third parties provide the required research and the expertise, and the resulting return on investment can be substantial from both the financial and client service perspectives.

Read more from Matt Troyer:

5 Reasons to implement IP
Citation Paper 1
Citation Paper 2
Super Citations

Matt Troyer is the Director of Patent Analytics at Anaqua, Inc. During his career he has managed the development of several patent search, analysis, reporting and patent evaluation tools. In 2010 he joined the FreePatentsOnline.com team to help create AcclaimIP.com–FPO’s entry into the professional patent search market. Matt supports and trains customers on patent research techniques, consults on patent research and portfolio mining projects, helps clients develop patent landscapes, and uses AcclaimIP to help clients identify patents that are infringed or otherwise licensable. In both 2015 and 2016, Matt was nominated to the IAM Strategy 300–The World’s Leading IP Strategists.