A bird’s eye overview of all the existing patents for a certain situation is referred to as a patent landscape. This involves searching for patents in a specific technology domain, or belonging to a particular organization, or emanating from a specific region, or from an inventor. The possibilities for conducting the search are endless. Subsequently, based on the understanding and the requirement of the situation, the entire set of patents may then be suitably classified and clustered. This requires a deep understanding of the technology and other aspects of the search parameters. Ultimately, the depiction of the information gleaned from such a search and analysis can be used in a variety of critical decision making situations. Exemplary situations include technology trends, research focus over time, white space or gap analysis, understanding the players in the field, focus of research & development, active researchers in the field, and so on.
From the several million patents available online, extracting those that belong to a specific organization is a specialized task requiring exceptional skills to understand the various ways the organization ends up owning or using the patents, trademarks & industrial designs. Further, the search professional needs to be fully aware of all the various names the organization may have held in the past, as potentially, patents may have been filed under each of those names, and continues to use that name. Other such situations may also arise, which may result in some key patents being missed unless one is aware of these specific situations. This is essential because without a proper understanding of the competition, a business ends up chasing shadows instead of becoming competitive in the market place. This search and analysis is now seen as a necessary aspect of every business in its efforts to maintain its competitiveness.
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