How Global Patent Filing Is Easier on the AQX IP Management Platform: Part 1

Learn how the AQX® IP management platform enables corporate IP teams to manage their global patent portfolios and foreign filings more efficiently to have a greater impact on the business.

 

Frequently, organizations try to expand into new markets and protect that expansion by filing for as many international patent applications as possible to protect their inventions. The downside in the long run to this approach is twofold –  an increase in administrative burden for IP teams and a ballooning IP budget. Without the right tools to help organizations manage their international patent portfolio and track costs, foreign filing can become costly and time-consuming.

 

By leveraging an effective integrated IP management platform, IP teams and business stakeholders can take a selective and strategic approach to foreign filing. With the right tools, your patent portfolio can serve the goals of the business and ensure the strong protection of the most important IP assets in key markets.

 

The Challenge: Global patent filing increases the administrative tasks for IP teams who already have limited time, resources, and bandwidth. Email volume continues to go up, filing data grows, and managing deadlines becomes increasingly difficult as a global patent portfolio expands. Finding efficiency gains is critical for team members managing foreign filing.

 

As companies seek IP management technology solutions to help in this area, those solutions must support the diverse needs of all company stakeholders and must align the IP portfolio with wider business goals. Team members who manage daily foreign filing tasks need tools to streamline their processes, while decision-makers must have big-picture information to drive portfolio strategy.

 

Solution: What if you could monitor a global patent portfolio, connect with trusted law firms worldwide, and tap into strategic insights - all while improving efficiency and reducing costs?

 

Here’s how you can in AQX…

• Determine Patents and Markets that Need Global Protection
• Generate Foreign Filing Cost Estimates and Budget Effectively

 

 

Determine Patents and Markets that Need Global Protection

 

Global patent filing is necessary but can also be expensive. Thoughtfully consider how you can focus your organization’s IP budget on the highest priority filings.

 

Start your foreign filing process by surveying the competitor landscape. With the AQX® IP management platform you can:

 

• Make informed decisions with dynamic charts, graphs, and tables of your company’s filings, or a competitive market landscape for a particular product.
• Verify a company’s IP position across jurisdictions by running a report that provides the raw data and a visual representation of the patent portfolio. With this information, you can quickly make decisions on expanding or trimming international coverage based on available budget, time, and foreign patent filing strategy.
• Provide reporting to company decision-makers based on classifications like technology, brand, and existing prior art within a given jurisdiction.

 

Table1. AcclaimIP foreign filing report in the AQX IP management platform

 

The Foreign Filing Report on the AQX platform allows you to benchmark your foreign filing against where your competitors are filing.  This interactive report displays where similar patents are historically filed and it enables you to target regions or individual jurisdictions where filing should be prioritized. Filing a few key patents in small market jurisdictions where your competitors typically file—which often indicates that they have manufacturing and/or engineering facilities in those countries—can give your company a competitive advantage.

 

With visualizations like this, your IP team can communicate with other company stakeholders to confidently identify the countries where secondary filings will strengthen coverage and help maintain competitiveness globally.Good foreign filing decisions don’t happen in isolation and must involve the business to determine how broadly to file and to improve the quality of your overall portfolio. Technology and tools enable IP teams to make crucial decisions throughout the foreign filing lifecycle.

 

The Foreign Filing Report in AQX helps patent owners quickly and conveniently surface any issues with their priority filing prior to making secondary filing decisions. The report is also used for analyzing claims and benchmarking related patents and where they have been historically filed.

 

 

Generate Foreign Filing Costs and Budget Effectively

 

Knowing where to file is only the first step. The AQX IP management platform helps you turn that information into action with the help of detailed or macro patent portfolio-level estimates.

 

As IP teams are painfully aware, filing fee estimates are only the beginning of the budgeting process. In AQX, you can see a ‘1-click quote’ that represents your official fees, translation, and service fees, on one screen, to enable faster decision-making.

 

AQX provides seamless integration with translation and filing services through an expansive agent network, giving you the flexibility to select preferred agents, and cost-effective administrative support when needed.  With the cost estimates and overall budget at your fingertips, you can plan effectively and give your IP team and business leaders a clear view of filing costs.

 

 

Table 2. AQX Home where clients can view the status of their cases and costs per territory

 

 

Ready to Streamline Your Foreign Filing?

 

Only with Anaqua can you have a powerful IP management platform with an integrated Foreign Filing Service. Partnering with Anaqua gives you visibility into your foreign filing data to drive successful IP management. With an integrated solution, you can manage your IP team’s workload, access better intelligence to make filing decisions and improve efficiency by freeing up time to focus on other IP work. All while knowing your IP portfolio is in expert hands with the best possible protection around the globe.