In Insights, you can create a Company Key Report, which allows you to gain a better understanding of a company's finances (we obtain financial data from FactSet), and its patent portfolio. You'll have access to number of graphs that will enable you to obtain a picture of that company's strategic ambitions and will also allow you to judge what their future plans are.
This article will cover the following topics:
Setting up a Company Key Report
To set up a Company Key Report from the Insights homepage, make sure you are selecting the "Company" option, and type in the company's name into the search bar. A list of suggestions that match the company name you entered will appear. This list will include any custom assignee groups you have created in the past.
After you click on one of the suggested companies, you will get a screen similar to what is shown below:
Before you create your report, you are able to refine by technology (in terms of IPC or CPC) and limit to keywords/query. Once you are happy with your refinements, click on the "Create Company Report" option. You will come to a screen like this:
Toolbar
On the top right corner of the page, you will see a toolbar that gives you options to change report settings.
Let's go through each of the options in the toolbar.
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Compare Company |
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Convert a Company Key Report into a Competitive Key Report. |
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View All Patents |
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View patents in Analytics. |
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Export reports in PDF, PPT, EXCEL or WORD format. |
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Share Report
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Share the report with co-workers. |
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Delete |
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Delete reports you no longer need. |
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Settings |
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There are 3 different tabs on the settings menu. 'Report Settings', 'Analysis Preferences' and 'Display Settings' |
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In 'Report Settings', you are able to change the name of your Report, or to modify the data source behind it.
In 'Analysis Preferences', you are able to modify the way your results are displayed, and toggle stemming "on" or "off".
In 'Display Settings', you are able to decide whether to show or hide numerical values in the Report charts, to select the colors that will represent the Report's data, and to adjust the font size that is used in different sections of a Report.
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Filters
On every report page, there are three different filters you can make use of. They are located at the top left corner of the Report view, and they will allow you to customize your report's content even further.
1. Database selection tool
Allows you to filter results by authority.
2. IPC Sub Class
Allows you to filter by IPC Sub Class.
3. More Filters
More filters allow you to filter by Application Year, Publication Year, Simple Legal Status, Patent Type, CPC Sub Class and Litigation Database.
Company Key Report Sections
On the left-hand sidebar, you are able to access the different sections available in the Company Key Report.
Each section allows you to view the data in different chart types (pie chart, bar graph, and more) along with a description. Each chart within the company report that compares three variables has the option to view in bubble chart format. Additionally, you can also display numbers on your chart data. These displayed numbers can also be exported.
Here's how you can easily toggle between different chart types:
Below we'll go through the different sections and chart options under the Company Key Report:
1. Overview
The Overview page provides the following 5 charts about this company:
- Application and Issued Trend
- Top Countries
- Key Technologies
- Key Patents
- Innovation Strategy
2. Portfolio Layout
Portfolio Layout allows you to analyze the patent portfolio of your selected company using various different metrics. It contains the following sections:
2.1. Innovation Profile
Within Innovation Profile, you can find the following charts and data:
- Portfolio Overview - Understand the total number of applications, and how they're broken down into simple families, PCT's and active patents (applications and issued patents).
- Application and Issued Trend - Analyze the annual application trend of the company. This chart shows the number of grants or issued patents resulting from applications filed in the same year. This indicates the company's filing success rate over time. Blue represents the application trend and green represents the trend of granted patents resulting from applications of the same year. Example: if a 2012 patent application is issued in 2014, the issued patents will appear in 2012 in green.
- Simple Legal Status - Simple legal status breakdown of the company's portfolio. This tells you the proportion of patents in the portfolio that are in effect, or no longer active, which you can then use to filter by.
- Patent Type - This chart gives a breakdown of the patent rights protection the company is filing for; whether they are protecting the function (Invention, utility) or the appearance/shape (design) of their inventions.
2.2. Geographic Territories
Within Geographic Territories, you can find the following charts and data:
- Top Countries - Shows the geographic coverage of where patent applications have been filed. This gives an indication of the targeted geographic markets the company is most prominent and potentially commercializing in.
- Application Trend in Top Countries - Shows the company's yearly application trend within the Top Countries. This gives an indication of the geographical markets the company is targeting and how their direction has changed over time, to help you identify shifts in targeted markets and focus over different time periods.
2.3. Key Technologies
Within Key Technologies, you can find the following charts and data:
- Key Technologies - Visualize the top technology areas the company is operating in, with the size of the box corresponding to the number of patents. This visualization is helpful for determining the organization's top competencies and to understand which technology areas they have invested in. Assess whether the company is focusing on one broad technology or if they have a diverse portfolio across a number of different technologies.
- Application Trend of Key Technologies - Yearly application trend of the key technologies. Understand the current main technology focus of the organization and how the company's investment into different technologies has changed over time. This is useful to understand the company's patenting strategy e.g. whether they have entered an entirely new technology space or have consolidated and focused on their core technology.
- Emerging Technologies - Understand the new technology areas the company has invested research and development in the last 5 years. This can help highlight new areas of research and development beyond their previous technology focus.
- Geographic Distribution of Key Technologies - Understand the top targeted markets by analyzing the distribution of the key technologies in this company's portfolio across the top 10 jurisdictions. This can help you identify the top targeted geographical markets for commercialization and any differing technological focus in specific markets.
2.4. Key Patents
Within Key Patents, you can find the following charts and data:
- Most Cited Patents - Identify the records in this company's portfolio that have been cited most frequently by other records. These represent more referenced patents that have had their technology built upon by others. These patents are likely to be more valuable and may represent the more relevant technology to the industry.
- Largest Invention Families - Identify the patent families in the company's portfolio that have the furthest reach of either global coverage, divisional counterparts, or continuations. Pinpoint the most successful inventions that have received a large amount of resource for increased level of coverage (either by expanding the technical coverage or geographical reach).
- Most Claim-Heavy Patents - Identify the patents that hold the largest number of claims (independent and dependent). These records represent more complex inventions and those that have the highest level of financial and time investment involved in filing and prosecution.
- Most Litigated Patents - Identify the patents involved in the highest number of litigation cases. This may represent areas associated with litigation risk.
2.5 Innovation Word Clouds
Within Innovation Word Clouds, you can find the following charts and data:
- Innovation Word Cloud - Understand the top keywords and phrases found in the latest 5,000 publications in the company's portfolio. This is helpful to provide a snapshot view of the language used by the company in their filings.
- Wheel Of Innovation - A two-tiered view of the keywords and phrases found within the latest 5,000 publications in the company's portfolio. This is helpful to provide a structured view of the language used by the company in their filings.
2.6 Technology Landscaping
The Technology Landscape enables you to visualize the technological layout of the company's portfolio. The peaks represent more concentrated areas of patenting activity and troughs representing areas of little or no activity - these suggest areas of potential opportunity and exploration.
The Landscape is generated through IPC clustering, followed by extracting of keywords by analysis of record text in each cluster.
3. Portfolio Analysis
Portfolio Analysis will allow you to analyze the patent portfolio of your selected company using various different metrics.
3.1 Inventor Analysis
Within Inventor Analysis, you can find the following charts and data:
- Top Inventors - The graph shows the top inventors in the company's portfolio. This information is useful to identify the top performers and innovators of the company. This is helpful to evaluate their work in more detail or for recruiting purposes, as they represent the R&D backbone of the company.
- Application Trend of Inventors - Yearly application trend of the top inventors can help you identify the inventors with the highest patenting activity in the most recent years, who represent existing talent within the company. You may also identify the inventing cadence of certain inventors.
- Top Inventors of Key Technologies - Pinpoint the top inventors innovating within different key technology areas of the portfolio. This can help you locate talent that specialize in specific technologies.
- Analyze Inventor Partnerships - Assess the relationships between top inventors to identify teams who work together within the company. These may represent talent groups for recruiting or collaboration purposes.
3.2. Co-Assignee Analysis
Within Co-Assignees, you can find the following charts and data:
- Co-Assignee Analysis - The graph shows the top assignees working with the organization and the number of patents they have co-operated on. This can help you understand whether this organization is open to collaborating with other assignees. A deeper look into the types of co-assignees can reveal whether they provide value in terms of research or application. Partnering with corporations tend to indicate more focus towards application of the technology, whereas partnerships with universities and research institutions indicate a focus towards research.
- Technology focus of Co-Assignee - Assess the key technology focus of patents worked on with co-assignees to understand the technology areas in which the organization is supported in and by whom.
- Geographical Distribution of Co-Assignees - Understand the geographic markets in which co-developed patents have been applied.
- Co-Assignee Timeline - A graph showing the top co-assignees over time and the number of co-developed patents annually. Identify whether there is a pattern for collaborative activity with certain assignees and which assignees the company has been actively partnering with over the most recent years.
4. Innovation Strategy
The Portfolio Strategy Radar Map uses patent information as an indicator of portfolio strategy. The graph compares various metrics of the portfolio to highlight the characteristics and the strengths. The algorithm for the Radar Map was developed in collaboration with the Entrepreneurship Center, National University of Singapore.
The different factors considered in the radar map are:
Quantity-Growth - Growth of Portfolio Indicator
This is measured as average annual growth rate in the institution’s patent portfolio. Calculation of this indicator uses the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) formula.
Growth of Portfolio = (Number of patents until last complete year / Number of Patents until (last complete year - 5))1/5 - 1
Quality-Improvement - Technology Impact Index (TII) Indicator
This measures the impact and influence of patents, based on the concept of highly-cited patents. A patent is identified as highly-cited if it is in the top 10% of its cohort in terms of forward citations received. Each cohort is defined by the year of grant and the primary technology class of a patent. The primary technology class is defined at the IPC sub-class level. The Technology Impact Index is computed by normalizing the share of an organization in the top 10% most highly cited patents to its share in total patents. Values above 1 indicate strong technology impact relative to patent output.
Technological Impact Index = Share of institution in the World’s top 5% most highly cited patents within each IPC Subclass / Share of institution in World’s Total Patents
Market-Driven R&D - Technology Cycle Time Indicator
This is an indicator of an organization's speed in turning leading edge technology into IP. Defined as the median age of the US patents cited as prior art (backward citations). Patents that draw on relatively newer technologies will have more recent prior art and therefore a shorter cycle time. For each patent owned by the organization, the median age of backward citations is computed. The organization's Technology Cycle Time (TCT) is the average of this median age across its total patent portfolio. A shorter cycle time indicates greater agility in responding to recent technology trends. For consistency in reporting (where higher values of an indicator are associated with higher prioritization of a strategy), the inverse value of TCT is computed.
To obtain the Technology Cycle Time for an institution:
For each patent in the portfolio, the median age of the backward citations (as prior art) is computed. To arrive at the Technology Cycle Time measure for the institution, the median for the measure in (a) is computed across all patents invented in the portfolio.
The inverse of the institution’s Technology Cycle Time is then calculated. Higher values of inverse TCT indicate greater responsiveness to market-driven demand.
Science-Driven R&D - Science-Based Patents Indicator
Indicates the proportion of the organization's patents with Bibliographic Citations Ratio (the ratio of citations that are based on research publications and journals compared to patents) values greater than 50%. Patents with BCR > 50% are regarded as science-based patents.
Share of Science-based Patents = Number of institution’s patents with BCR greater than 50% / Total number of patents in the institution’s portfolio
Tech Specialization - Technology Specialization Indicator
Quantifies the degree to which a patents portfolio is specialized or concentrated in a small number of technological areas versus being evenly distributed across a range of technology classes. The Herfindahl Index is computed using the proportions of patents in IPC sectors defined at the IPC sub-class level. Higher values of the Index represent greater degree of concentration.
Where pi = share of IPC sector in the institution’s patent portfolio.
Tech Diversification - Complex Multi-Technology Patents Indicator
Measures the extent of technological complexity in a patent portfolio. A "complex patent" is one which is classified in multiple technological areas. A technological area is defined as the IPC sub-class level. A patent is categorized as complex if it has technology classes spanning at least two IPC sub-classes. The Share of Complex Patents indicates the proportion of an organization's patents stock which comprises of complex patents. Higher share of complex patents suggests greater opportunities for generating cross-sector economic activity, e.g. cross-licensing or cross-sector technology trading.
Share of Complex Patents = Number of institution’s patents which have technology classification spanning at least two IPC sub-classes / Total number of patents in the institution’s portfolio
Internationalization - International Co-Invention Indicator
International Co-invention quantifies the degree to which the institution engages in collaborative R&D with inventors outside its home economy.
International Co-invention = Number of institution’s patents with at least one co-inventor with an overseas address / Total number of patents in the institution’s portfolio “Overseas” is defined as an economy which is outside the institution’s HQ location.
Joint R&D - Co-Patenting Indicator
Co-patenting quantifies the degree to which the institution engages in external collaborations resulting in joint creation and ownership of IP.
Extent of Co-patenting = Number of institution’s patents with more than one named assignee / Total number of patents in the institution’s portfolio
5. Market Valued Patents
Market Valued Patents helps you understand which of this company’s inventions have the highest market-valuation and lucrative potential.
Within Market Valued Patents, you can find the following charts and data:
- Value Overview - Displays the total value of patents, and the total number of simple families
in the company's portfolio. - Portfolio Value Distribution - Understand the strength of the patent portfolio based on the distribution of estimated patent valuation, with stronger portfolios having a greater proportion of their portfolio in higher value buckets. Learn more about the patent valuation methodology here: How Does PatSnap Valuation Work?
- Technology Area Benchmark - Compare the company's average estimated patent value within its top IPC classes against the industry's average patent value for each IPC class.
- Highest Market-Valued Patents - Identify the intellectual property gems within the company's portfolio with the highest estimated patent values and lucrative potential.
6. Patent Litigation
Patent litigation lists different analyses of litigation events in which the company has been involved.
6.1. Litigation Analysis
Within Litigation Analysis, you can find the following charts and data:
- Litigation Overview - Overview of the litigation information related to the company.
- Litigation Concepts - The chart shows the most mentioned keywords and concepts extracted from patents involved in litigation. The size of each segment represents the number of cases associated to the keyword or concept. (Max. 5,000 patents used).
- Basis of Termination - Read the case details to understand more about how cases have been resolved. A chart to show the breakdown of basis of termination (US and GB data).
- Litigation Timeline - This graphs shows the annual litigation case trend of the company. Understand the frequency of litigation and proportion of cases where the organization is plaintiff or defendant, indicating either a more offensive or defensive strategy over periods of time.
- Most Sued Defendants - Understand which parties are being sued the most by the organization for patent infringement. This is helpful to identify which companies are potentially infringing on this organization's technology and may be worth monitoring to ensure they do not infringe on your technology.
- Most Aggressive Plaintiffs - Understand which parties are suing the organization most for patent infringement. This is helpful to identify litigious companies and risk involved with filing patents within their technology area.
- Defendant And Plaintiff Breakdown - Understand the number of litigation cases the company has been involved as a plaintiff or defendant. This can indicate whether the company is typically offensive or defensive in patent litigation.
- Longest Litigated Cases - Identify the litigation cases of longest duration. This can represent cases that have had a lot of preparation work, unpredictable litigation results, and legal advice, amounting to expensive litigation costs. The patents involved with these cases may represent valuable technology to the company, as they have had a lot of time and financial investment to fight and secure ownership of the patent right.
6.2. As Plaintiffs
Within "As Plaintiffs", you can find the same charts and data that are available in "Litigation Analysis", but it will only include the the cases and data in which the company that is being currently analyzed acted as the plaintiff.
6.3. As Defendants
Within "As Defendants", you can find the same charts and data that are available in "Litigation Analysis", but it will only include the the cases and data in which the company that is being currently analyzed acted as the defendant.
7. Portfolio Transactions
In the Portfolio Transaction section, you'll find exampled of patents in which the company has licensed in, licensed out, transferred from, or transferred to.
7.1. Licensing Deals
Within Licensing Deals, you can find the Annual In-Licensing And Out-Licensing chart.
This graph shows the company's patent licensing activity over time. The frequency of licensing activity can indicate the company's willingness to licensing their technology and suggest the maturity of their patent monetization strategy.
7.2. Acquisition & Divestiture
Within Acquisition & Divestiture, you can find the following charts and data:
- Top Sources of Assignment - Understand which organizations have most frequently transferred patent ownership to this company and which patents have been transferred.
- Top Out-Transfer Sources - Understand which organizations the company has most frequently transferred patent ownership to and which patents have been involved. This may indicate technology areas this company is no longer targeting or investing research and development resources towards.
8. Competitive Analysis
Competitive Analysis shows different aspects of various companies' portfolios that might have a similar patenting strategy to the company being examined.
8.1. Similar Portfolios
Within Similar Portfolios, you can find the following charts and data:
- Similar Portfolios Size - The graph shows a comparison of the patent portfolio size between the searched company and other organizations with the most similar portfolios. This is helpful for benchmarking portfolio size to assess competitive threats.
- Similar Portfolios Value - The graph shows the total value of the company's portfolio in comparison to the total portfolio value for each organization with the most similar portfolios. This is helpful for benchmarking portfolio values to assess strength and lucrative potential of competitors portfolios.
- Similar Portfolios Application Trend - This graph shows the annual application trend of organizations with the most similar portfolios. Compare filing trends between the companies to benchmark patenting activity.
- Similar Portfolios Geographic Coverage - This graph shows the patenting activity by geography of organizations with the most similar portfolios. This is helpful to benchmark jurisdictional distribution of publications (applications and grants) to identify competitors in specific jurisdictions.
8.2. Most Citing Companies
Understand the top organizations that are citing this company's top 10 most cited patents. This is helpful to identify the organizations that are operating closest to the company and how they have utilized the technology. A deeper dive in to the patent records can reveal how the technology has potentially been built upon and how it has evolved or been used for alternative applications. From an alternative perspective, these organizations may represent potential licensees or pose potential a litigation threat.
