Patent analysis

, and multiple searches for each jurisdiction may have to be performed if an organization is interested in obtaining clearance for product launch in different countries.

Patent landscape reports

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Patent landscape reports (PLRs) are another example of a report produced by performing patent analysis.

For users in industry, they are used as a decision-making mechanism (patent portfolio management, R&D investment and prioritisation, technology transfer, etc.). Such reports are typically confidential and not publicly available. They are costly and commissioned or developed to support specific decision-making processes and are considered business intelligence.

In the public sector, the providers of patent landscape reports are the national patent offices or research institutes that prepare reports on subjects of general interest, for a specific need, or to provide landscaping services to the public. Patent landscape reports are used by the public sector to raise awareness, with public institutions increasingly finding ways to facilitate and validate their policy decisions in ways that are similar to private sector decisions.^[5]

Some public and private entities make patent landscape reports or patent analytics reports publicly available, including patent offices. An example of a searchable database of such reports is World Intellectual Property Organization's PATENTSCOPE database that facilitates patent landscape reports by other organizations.^[10] One or several state of the art or prior art patent search reports form the basis of these patent landscape reports. Different fields of patent documents and other structured information are analyzed using statistical, analytical, and comparative methods to identify patterns, understand IP strategies and trends in technology areas in question. The results of the analysis are presented using a combination of narrative and different type of visualizations.

Patent landscape reports are sometimes confused with different products serving different purposes, such as a

There are currently^[as of?] very few methodological resources describing the steps and tasks involved in patent analytics.^[12] Typically patent analytics teams work with R&D departments, patent attorneys, with related information feeding into IP, corporate and business strategy decisions.^[5]

In general, patent analytics and patent landscape report creation involves the following stages:^[5]

1. Defining the topic and project scope,
2. The patent search that leads to obtaining patent data,
3. Data cleaning and normalization,
4. Data analysis and visualization,
5. Narrative and storytelling when drafting the report, and
6. Dissemination and distribution of the analysis.

Patent analytics is an iterative process which often requires rescoping of the project and adaptation based on the findings during the process. There are different tools which can be used for analytics, some embedded in patent databases, others more general data manipulation, visualization and analytics tools, including commercial and open source tools.^[5]

Further reading

• Breitzman, Anthony F.; Mogee, Mary Ellen (June 1, 2002). "The many applications of patent analysis". Journal of Information Science. 28 (3): 187–205.
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• Abbas, Assad; Zhang, Limin; Khan, Samee U. (2014). "A literature review on the state-of-the-art in patent analysis". World Patent Information. 37: 3–13.
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• Gazni, Ali (2020). "The growing number of patent citations to scientific papers: Changes in the world, nations, and fields". Technology in Society. 62: 101276.
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