IP (Intellectual Property) Means to Enhance Performance Factors (Cost, Quality & Speed) in R&D

8/3/2019 IP (Intellectual Property) Means to Enhance Performance Factors (Cost, Quality & Speed) in R&D

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IP (Intellectual Property): Means to Enhance

Performance factors (Cost, Quality & Speed) in R&D

Document by: Bharadwaj

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Extended Abstract

In India, there is a growing awareness that Innovation, whether incremental or radical breakthroughs, is key to being

competitive in the globalized economy and Intellectual property (IP) is one of the yard sticks to measure the output in

the form of patents, trademarks, Industrial designs etc.

Many large establishments are now in the process of establishing or are in the process of initiating the IP culture. The

scenario in majority of the research laboratories, universities (barring CSIR, IITs and few other Institutes) and

Industry, especially, SMEs (small and medium scale enterprises) which contribute to almost 40% towards Indian

economy, however, is poor. Although the prime reason is the lack of awareness, the important missing link is in the

form of shortage of clarity in the curriculum relating to the spread of awareness itself; mere mention of what it refers

to and how important it is does not suffice. In other words, lack of adequate information or misinformation often

results in the beginners possessing IP building capability developing wrong perceptions in that, (i) IP generation

involves high costs, (ii) the process is time consuming and complex, (iii) the system involves legal hassles, and (iv)

other means of protection, currently preferred, may be a better option.

With the growing intense competition in the international as well as domestic trade, the value of patent information

supplemented with market and business information (shortened with the tag “PIMIBI”) becomes more obvious at

least to those who are forced to compete in order to maintain and improve their position in the marketplace. PIMIBI

helps (a) avoid costly duplication of effort in R&D of ideas already developed, (b) helps solve technical problems, (c)

helps connect authentic providers of technology and (d) provides enterprises an opportunity to look for new areas to

explore.

In the present scenario, an evidently big gap is in the form of lack of availability of specialists at individual levels or

service providers who have models to communicate and diffuse the misconceptions on one hand and help guide the

means to extract the best for the prevailing problems on the other hand. Thinking of the end result in the form of

generating IP should be the last but important resort.

For enterprises at all scales, the key concern revolves around three performance factors (a) Cost, (b) Quality and (c)

Speed. It’s logical that tinkering with only one corner of the magic triangle of cost, quality and speed in the context of

effective business offering products or services would only result in a compromised and inferior result as all three

factors are inter-related.

SciTech Patent Art Services, an IP Consulting firm, located in Hyderabad, with seven years of service offerings to

wide range of end users worldwide comprising Fortune 500, Research laboratories, Law firms, Universities has

evolved with a unique model to address the local needs (Indian companies, Universities and research laboratories) in

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the context of extending research support, providing gaps / opportunities to develop technologies / patent portfolio

and facilitate technology transfer or upgradation through its network of expert connections.

The paper highlights the broad steps involved in the concept (based on PIMIBI and network of experts ) to deliver

solutions keeping the performance factors (cost, quality and speed) in view. The paper will be support with a couple

of case studies.



Introduction

The best quality products or services world over is a result of the best processes employed. Thecurrent context is the patent analysis (PA), one of the major segments of intellectual property (IP),which refers to investigating relationships and trends. PA is the means through which

researchers, inventors, entrepreneurs, universities, commercial enterprises (small, medium &large) and patent professionals achieve business objectives. The analysis is carried out at macro-level and micro-level to address the following requirements:

• Evaluating Innovations

• Building, Managing, Commercializing IP

• Investigating Technology Intelligence for finding opportunities

It is an established fact that majority involved in R&D do not access patent literature whichcontributes to ~70% of the literature disclosing true technologies invented world over. Thereasons that can be attributed particularity to Universities and SMEs for treating this segment asan alien include:

a) Lack of awarenessb) Involves costc) Needs expertised) Notion that it is costly and complexe) Choosing other means of protecting IP, if any,

While patent literature may suffice to provide one a roadmap for planning R&D, patent analysis inconjunction with market and business intelligence would help the researchers, technologydevelopers and users find asses the true state of the art of a technology in addition to findingpotential parties either for offering or seeking technical solutions in the form of products or processes. PA is also a strong means to avoid duplication of efforts, especially, in projectsinvolving major resources in terms of time, money and effort. This boils down to the role of apatent analyst or a company offering such services playing a significant role in that one needs to

perform the PA related tasks in a manner that every bit of relevant information extracted (quality)is in a short period of time making it cost effective (a function of time and cost).

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the attributes that affect patent analysis measured interms of quality and cost incurred, and these factors are important for the service provider as wellas the end individual user, especially, Universities and SMEs. Understanding and assessing thedependency of factors such as quality (refers to information highly relevant to the end user) andcost, requires interpretation of the attributes associated with each of the workflow steps involvedin PA. These are as listed below:

• Query (Scope)

• Search (Databases and search efficiency)

• Analysis (Broad or in-depth, field selection, relevancy and crispness)

• IP Report (format, content, insights through interpretation )



Query

Whether the query relating to IP is from an independent inventor or an enterprise, a project’s

economics depends on how much in tandem the IP analyst and the end user are, in terms of

understanding the basic objectives. The success of IP projects may be labeled as (a) somewhat

useful or (b) highly useful, depending on either the failure to retrieve the relevant information

and/or failure to capture it and interpret the insights. Few attributes that can make or break an IP

project include:

1. End user’s knowledge of IP (may range from very minimal to advanced levels)

2. Analyst’s knowledge of IP along with knowledge of specific technology area

3. Ability to communicate the gaps in scope by the parties involved in (a) & (b)

The above three factors could affect both quality and time (hence cost) as these factors might

define a query either too broad or too narrow which in turn would have a bearing on the

subsequent search and analysis. Lack of awareness from a business perspective may

additionally contribute to defining the scope inappropriately.

Search

The scope of search is a function of the final objective in terms of utilizing the results and aneffective quick retrieval of the same are dependent upon:

1. Interaction between the searcher and the domain expert leading to correct identificationof concepts, keywords and their synonyms.

2. The searcher’s search skills and familiarity with different databases

Search restricted only to few known databases often results in incomplete information and leadsto spending time not worthy of uncertainty. This calls for a caution on behalf of the end user either being familiar with the coverage by different databases or better yet is to assign the job to aservice provider

Analysis

Patent search invariably results in large number of records screening is carried out to end up withrelevant data. This requires usage of program based tools, if need arises. Based on the size of the data retrieved against a query, the analysts need to judge whether or not to apply a tool or perform manual screening. For example, for a technology landscaping, when a large set of search results are to be screened, followed by grouping of results, one needs to decide onutilizing a tool. However, this tool either supplied by external vendor or built in-house, has to bethoroughly standardized and validated.



In short, the ability of the patent analyst to understand the technology in the context of criteriathat is set for defining relevancy would allow one to judge what method or tool should be utilized.The end user would then have a chance to fit it into his or her budget provided the scope getsrefined with a couple of reviews of the preliminary results.

Beyond a broader perspective, analysis demands manual intervention of higher order. If what is

needed is to identify a small gap or opportunity, it would demand an equal level of accuracy inidentifying aspects and their interpretation. One of the major factors that can significantlyinfluence the economics of a project is the decision on the depth of analysis. Accurate analysismore often than not is descriptive and to bring it to a state of reasonable crispness either requiresone to be an expert in the domain field or spend more time during analysis.

Overall, the cost and quality of an IP project are strongly dependent on the level of analysis; that is, high level or in-depth. This, in turn, is dependent upon the objective of the end user. Thesubsequent factors that may influence the quality and cost depend on the size of the data set, the

level and frequency of interaction between the analyst and the end user .

IP ReportFrom the perspective of end user, the quality of report will depend on what research / businessdecisions it leads to. Mapping is a way to interpret results from patent analysis through generationof graphs (2D, 3D, Venn diagrams etc.), tables (including matrix tables) and others such asbubble graphs. Quality maps are those that help the end user interpret information in such a waythat each of the questions are answered in addition to learning more than what is anticipated. For this to happen, it is imperative that the data analyzed is transformed into meaningful informationthat would help the end user gain knowledge.

The value of the report is high when it is used as a basis to exploit opportunities in more than oneway. There may be many variables to interpret during mapping and generating a report; however,sticking to the ones that provide best insights should be the primary goal. The end customer maywant to redo certain portions at an additional cost; An IP report generation is similar to carryingout R&D experiment and optimizing conditions for the best output in terms of time and cost.

Prior to generation of an IP report, the following questions need to be asked to oneself

• For whom is it meant for?

• What should be the content?

• What should be the format?

• Does it answer the end user’s questions or meet the objectives?

• Does it cover information and NOT just Data?

Patent Analytics for Universities andSMEs

For an Indian University and/or an SME, the need for patent search andanalysis will be more in the context of identification of potential topics forresearch, ensuring the uniqueness of a project in the sense of not duplicating



it, assessing patentability of on-going or past work and finding opportunitiesto commercialize

It is important to distinguish the differences in technological requirements, if any, amongst the

Universities, SMEs and other enterprises. Current knowledge indicates that the first twosegments in general are zero-to-minimum and large enterprises average-to-maximum when itcomes to any IP activities. This then calls for a basis to answer the following questions:

1. Is the approach (patent analytics) adopted for Universities /SMEs is different as

compared to large enterprises?

2. Are the charges for IP services different for Universities/SMEs?

The answers to question 1 and question 2 are yes and no respectively indicting that it issituational and depends on the nature of requests, the size and frequency. With quality being thesame, the cost does favor Universities and SMEs.

In conclusion, patent analytics along with non-patent literature being the

means to exploit opportunities or stay away from hassles either fromindividuals or from an enterprise, the best results evolve from the quality of the resources and the models that are built with flexibility to adapt tomultiple situations. It is the ability to apply analytical skills as well as

judgment appropriate to a particular request that can help generate quality output in a cost effective manner. SPA has built a basis to address the concerns of

Universities and SMEs that IP generation is complex, costly and involves legal hassles. Both thesegments even have incentives provided by the government agencies and non-utilization of suchopportunities only points to a different issue and that on a large scale is mind set. Appropriatecase studies supporting the methodology would be presented.

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IP (Intellectual Property) Means to Enhance Performance Factors (Cost, Quality & Speed) in R&D