The Information World doesn’t stop at Patents

Frederic Baudour

ICIC 2014

Objective of this Presentation

Consider how we can broaden the range of activities beyond patents to a much wider

range of information sources

Provide ideas on how to Enlarge the Scope

Explains some Limitations

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Why?

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Historically Supporting IP dpt and R&D with

-FTO literature searches & analysis, -Patentability literature searches & analysis, -Invalidity literature searches, -Basic literature searches

Since mid 2000 a new activity has developed in

ANALYSIS & VISUALIZATION

-Patent Lanscaping exercise -Competitor patent portofolio -…

Historically part of IP dept

Patent Info Certification Project

Opportunity to increase and broaden the value to the

whole Business

A lot of us have a job title related to « Patent Information something »

At the start there is …The Question

• The Question must be well defined, it will lead the whole exercise Question Leads, Answers follow

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1 • Question

2 • Answers = Data = Information

3 • Actionable Intelligence

4 • Action

The process…

• To answer a specific question, we are less concerned about: - Where our data is coming from, as long as it is from a Validated sources

- The Number of data (1 record or 10,000),

- The Kind of data (patent or not patent),

ANY DATA RELEVANT TO OUR TOPIC IS OF INTEREST TO US

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Search Analyze Visualize

Extract « Intelligence »

Objective of the search…

• Out of any document, what we want to extract is … « Intelligence »

• Actionable Intelligence is what we need in to run our business What we must use to take ACTIONS

ACTIONABLE INTELLIGENCE IS

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

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Search Analyze Visualize

Extract « Intelligence »

Any aspect of the Environment

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Everything publicly available

In a lot of cases the information can be retrieved in databases, books, market news, …

Data coming from Direct Observation of the Market

Eg sales meetings with customers,

Information discussions at conferences, …

Specialists of Database Information Retrieval

MUST contribute

Marketing & Sales With our contribution: Knowledge Managers

Integrating data

Everything publicly available

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Technical Information - Patents, Non-Patents - Competitors, customers, suppliers, … - 3rd party that could enter the market

Financial Information Financial results Financial expectations

Legal Information -Laws, rules, … concerning the products you sell -Laws, rules, … concerning your raw materials -…

Market Environment Market reports/studies Market news

MacroEconomic Environment Macroeconomic data on the Countries in which you (want to) evolve

Products Product brochures from Competitors, customers, Supplicers, …

Etc

Search

Analyze

Visualize Summarize

Distribute

Gathering: The sources

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What? Where? (only some examples)

Technical Info STN, PatBase, Orbit, Thomson Reuters, TotalPatent, Proquest…

Financial Info Thomson Reuters, Avention, Bureau Van Dijck, etc

Macroeconomic Info IHS, EuroMonitor, Thomson Reuters, ProQuest, etc

Market Info Market Reports: ReportLinker, MarketResearch, Markets&Markets, Frost, DataMonitor, Proquest…

Legal Info Lexis-Nexis, Kluwer, West Law, etc Chemicals: National Inventories, STN, etc

Product Info Mostly on internet (companty websites)

…

Technical Information – The Challenges

Searching

- Comprehensiveness is nearly impossible

- Looking in databases with added values abstracts:

- Impossible to Index ALL Publications in the World

- Looking in full text databases:

- Mainly for Patents

- Language Issue

- Missing the added value Tools

- Legal aspects (eg patents)

- Comprehensiveness,

- Limitation in Search Engines Capabilities

Analyzing

- Basic statistics - Easy to obtain Automatic Extraction of Intelligence is not yet working correctly

- Orbit Concepts Extraction

- Intellixir Keywords Extraction

- STN Anavist Indexed Terms Analysis

- Most of the Tools Patent Classifications Analysis

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• Automatic Analysis provides Better Results if the Data have Added Value

• Full Text Analysis must still Improve

Financial Information – The Challenges

Searching

- Sometimes the results are not published

- Family owned companies

- Investment bank owned companies

- Small companies

- Periodicity of the publication varies from one country to another, from one company to another, …

- Quarterly

- Annually

- …

Analyzing

- Several companies will disclose differently:

- Currencies

- Time periods

- Different Fiscal Years

- Different FInancial Indicators

- Consequences:

- When comparing companies financial results, it is first imperative to

PREPROCESS THE DATA

(compare apples with apples)

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Market Environment - Searching - The Challenges • MacroEconomic Data

- Detailled macroeconomic data available for a lot of countries, but not all of them

- Clusters in macroeconomic data are often too broad

- Price to obtain the data can also be an issue

• Market Reports/Studies - Readily available but can be Expensive

- By their nature they are a Picture of the (recent) Past

- Very good for understand market structure

- but Forecasts are not infallible

- In some cases where the Market too small = no Market study ???

• Market News - Easily available except for

- Some countries lacking coverage

- Some companies are too small to be included

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Market Environment - Analyze: the challenges

• MacroEconomic data

- Easy to analyze with Excel

- … but again only big trends,

• Market Reports/Studies - Must be compared with our internal knowledge of the market (eg what

we learn via Sales dpt) => Fine tune numbers to come closer to the reality

- Teamwork is key: involve Marketing, Sales, etc

- Use a common analytical tool eg Excel

• Market News

- Remove duplicates same information will be provided via different news providers

- Try to identify trends, look between the lines

- No specific software can help yet

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Legal Information – The Challenges

Searching

• Companies need to be complient with local laws

• No Global Database available - Kluwer (BE), West Law, Hein, Lexis

Nexis, …

- Information is coming from Law Firms or associations (eg CEFIC)

- Need to search country by country (=> language issue)

• Specific case: Chemicals - Chemical Regulations

- A way to position your company

- Cost expensive databases,

- National Inventories, …

Analyzing

• What may you do in a country that you may not in another? - Risk analysis

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• Acquire the data and then create your own database (eg WERCS) Time & Cost consuming

• Need the data for all countries • Need to know the composition of

the product you are looking for

Product Brochures - The challenges

Searching

- No Central Database

- Comprehensiveness Completeness

- Availability

Analyzing

- Written Differently

- Different Formats,

- Different Languages,

- Different Technical Languages / Focus

- Analysis of Evolution over Time Difficult

- No Specific Tool for Analysis

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Combine everything and open your eyes

• Compare different kinds of data, try to read between the lines:

- Does every information tell the same story?

- How is the Market Evolving? How can we Anticipate it?

- What are the ultimate goals of our competitors? What are they planning?

- …

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Legal

etc

Market

Technical

Conclusions

Question => Answer => ACTION

• Room for improvement for Information Providers

- Language issue correct machine translations

- Standardized / Preformatted data

- Continuous improvement of analysis tools

• Opportunity for Information Specialists to Broaden Scope of Activities - See bigger / broader picture than patents => Acquire New Competencies

- Extract the « Actionable Intelligence » that no computer can identify

- Be Part of a Larger Group : Work with colleagues to validate your data

- Provide Recommendations for ACTION to Internal Customer

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IN THIS WAY WE CAN INCREASE AND BROADEN OUR VALUE TO THE WHOLE BUSINESS

The Whole Exercise will be worth NOTHING if there is no ACTION

taken at its End !!!

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Jay Paap (2008)