Category Archives: Patents

Patent Landscape Report on Animal Genetic Resources

Patents, Research profiling

This patent landscape report provides an overview of international patent activity for animal genetic resources for food and agriculture. The research focused on identifying patent activity for 17 animals from 15 species of global importance in food and agriculture. The research covered cattle, buffalo, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, donkeys, bactrian and dromedary camels, llamas and alpacas along with  chickens, ducks and turkeys. The research did not include fish.
The research involved:

  • Text mining over 14 million patent documents from the European Patent Office, the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the Patent Cooperation Treaty for animal names and breed names;
  • Mapping technology clusters involving animals;
  • Identifying patent documents involving animal genetic resources of
    relevance to food and agriculture;
  • Reviewing patent documents for references to breed names and traditional
    knowledge.

The main outcomes of the research are:

  • A quantitative indicator of trends in patent activity for animal genetic
    resources that can be updated and refined over time to respond to policy
    needs;
  • Analysis of the key features of the patent landscape for animal genetic
    resources of relevance to food and agriculture;
  • A detailed set of examples of important patent documents involving
    animal genetic resources to provide evidence to inform policy debates.

Author(s): Paul Oldham, Stephen Hall and Colin Barnes
Organization(s): World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
Source: Patent Landscape Reports Project
http://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_947_3.pdf
Year:  2014

Evolution of the Patent Information World – Challenges of yesterday, today and tomorrow

Patents

Highlights

  • Patent information developments 1996–2014 reviewed.
  • Implications of extended and improved search capabilities explored.
  • Language issues, data volume and changing user needs are significant issues.
  • Parallel development of basic raw data searches and of power searches and analysis predicted.

Over the last 18 years, the field of patent information searches has dramatically evolved.
Centralized information centers have started to disappear while new internet applications targeted at end-users have emerged. At the same time, the quantity of information has increased exponentially.  Patent information specialists must now master several high level techniques to run precise searches, but also to analyze the large amounts of information retrieved, using modern software packages. The goal of this paper is to review the major advances over the last 18 years, how we have arrived at the current situation and what will be the future challenges for the industry.

Author(s): Frederic Baudour and  Aalt van de Kuilen
Organization(s): ALLNEX, Abbott Healthcare Products, and Confederation of European Patent information User Groups (CEPIUG)
Source: World Patent Information
Year: 2014

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0172219014001380

Patent Analysis of Shale Gas Technology in China and Implications for its Exploitation

Patents, Research profiling, Strategic planning

China has made significant progress in developing new energy sources such as solar energy and wind power in recent decades. However, commercial exploitation of shale gas in China is in the very early stages, in sharp contrast to that in the United States. Patents related to shale gas exploitation are analyzed by using data mining and patent maps. The findings show that shale gas exploitation involves complex technologies that technological accumulation is a long-term process. Despite decades of rapid growth, significant technology gaps still exist for Chinese enterprises and technological factors could be the bottleneck of China’s exploitation of its massive shale gas resources. Meanwhile, foreign enterprises have applied for a large number of patents in China. Chinese enterprises might have to obtain licenses from foreign patent holders, which could have important implications for shale gas exploitation in China.

Author(s): Mier Zhang, Wei Guo and Zhen Lei
Organization(s): Dalian University of Technology and Pennsylvania State University
Source: Energy Technology
Year: 2014

The global intellectual property landscape of induced pluripotent stem cell technologies

Patents, Research profiling, ST&I indicators, ST&I policy

Will freedom to research and innovate be restricted as the induced pluripotent stem cell field advances toward the clinic, or are concerns premature within a rapidly changing ecosystem?

Intellectual property (IP) rights lie at the core of the commercialization process, serving as a powerful incentive to harness the potential of technologies for therapeutic applications. However, when filed inappropriately—with broad or premature claims, for example—or when mismanaged, patents can obstruct vital precompetitive collaborations, dampen investor interest and threaten clinical translation and patient access. Moreover, uncertainties, including those around the validity of claims or the priority of ownership rights, can depress progress.

Although the total number of stem cell patent filings has declined since 2008, patents for iPSC technologies continue to increase8. Analysis of the blistering pace of scientific progress in this area indicates that the growth is unlikely to abate. Widespread concern has been voiced that the emerging ecosystem is becoming burdened by prohibitive and cumulative licensing fees that could restrict scientists’ freedom to research and patients’ equitable access to resulting medical benefits. Although these concerns may be allayed through innovation and industry growth cycles, the upstream production and downstream differentiation of iPSCs into desired cell lineages for application requires numerous interrelated, complex technologies. This distinguishes cellular patents from the evolution of other highly patented industries such as small-molecule drugs and electronics. No single company currently controls the IP for all techniques, methods and reagents required for the production of iPSCs. A global race is underway to establish the most suitable and efficient methods for each of these component technologies.

Author(s): MacKenna Roberts, Ivan B Wall, Ian Bingham, Dominic Icely, Brock Reeve, Kim Bure, Anna French and David A Brindley
Organization(s): Oxford–University College London Centre for the Advancement of Sustainable Medical Innovation, University of Oxford
Source: Nature Biotechnology
Year: 2014

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v32/n8/full/nbt.2975.html

A patento-scientometric approach to venture capital investment prioritization

Patents, ST&I indicators

This paper proposes an approach to analyzing and prioritizing venture capital investments with the use of scientometric and patentometric indicators. The article highlights the importance of such investments in the development of technology-based companies and their positive impacts on the economic development of regions and countries. It also notes that the managers of venture capital funds struggle to objectify the evaluation of investment proposals. This paper analyzes the selection process of 10 companies, five of which received investments by the largest venture capital fund in Brazil and the other five of which were rejected by this same fund. We formulated scientometric and patentometric indicators related to each company and conducted a comparative analysis of each by considering the indicators grouped by the nonfinancial criteria (technology, market, and divestiture team) from analysis of the investment proposals. The proposed approach clarifies aspects of the criteria evaluated and contributes to the construction of a method for prioritizing venture capital investments.

Author(s): Gustavo da Silva Motta, Pauli Adriano de Almada Garcia, and Rogério Hermida Quintella
Organization(s): Universidade Federal da Bahia
Source: Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Year: 2014

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.23205/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

Graphene: The Worldwide Patent Landscape in 2013

Patents, Research profiling, ST&I indicators,

In 2011 the Patent Informatics team at the Intellectual Property Office analysed patenting activity relating to graphene following a noticeable increase in the number of graphene-related patent applications filed in the UK. Since then the activity in this area has continued to grow in a seemingly exponential manner, as has the media hype surrounding it. Given the perceived imminent commercialisation and high profile nature of graphene and its apparent interest to scientists, technologists and policy-makers alike, an updated report has been produced looking at the worldwide graphene patent landscape in 2013 and how it has changed over the last couple of years. Continue reading Graphene: The Worldwide Patent Landscape in 2013 →

Creating patents on the new technology using analogy-based patent mining

Future-oriented technology analysis, Patents, Research profiling

Patents on the new technology–a technology not yet commercialized and in an early stage of its life cycle–give firms many benefits. However, existing methods are inadequate because of dependencies on customers and physical prototypes. And there is lack of systems, focused on a problem identification process or an inter-technological comparison. In this research, to remedy existing limitations, analogy-based patent mining system is suggested. Continue reading Creating patents on the new technology using analogy-based patent mining →

Biological Diversity in the Patent System

Network analysis, novel source, Patents, Science mapping, ST&I policy,

Biological diversity in the patent system is an enduring focus of controversy but empirical analysis of the presence of biodiversity in the patent system has been limited. To address this problem we text mined 11 million patent documents for 6 million Latin species names from the Global Names Index (GNI) established by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). Continue reading Biological Diversity in the Patent System →