Patents – the Chinese are coming
Jinfo Blog

24th October 2010

By Tim Buckley Owen

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Patent information is moving from the niche to the mainstream, says a recent report. And as it becomes an increasingly important strategic weapon, both in the corporate and government arenas, the opportunities for infopros should proliferate. Patent information remains a very specialised niche market, representing only a small percentage of the total revenue generated in the legal, tax and regulatory information sector, says the Outsell report The Evolving Patent Information Landscape (purchase details at http://digbig.com/5bcqyg). But it adds that patent information providers and intellectual property owners are taking a more holistic, life cycle view of IP and the information and tools they need to support it. Information providers are certainly moving to meet this need. Patent investigation has always stretched the boundaries of search, and it’s a classic application for the increasingly workflow-based solutions that large scale information providers are offering. LexisNexis, for example, has just added an Analytics tool to its PatentOptimizer product that allows customers to rapidly identify common threads in patent portfolios or answer sets, potentially enabling them to spot hidden trends (http://digbig.com/5bcqyh). And parading your patent track record could even become part of the executive’s personal profile, with the launch recently by LinkedIn of five new customisable profile sections, including one allowing entrepreneurs to show off their inventions by listing their granted and pending patents (http://digbig.com/5bcqyj). Surprisingly in view of its growing economic importance, government regulation of intellectual property issues remains quite fragmented on both side of the Atlantic. A recent report from the United States Congressional Research Service, The Role of Trade Secrets in Innovation Policy, explains that it’s largely a matter of state law, and considers whether Congress should supplement the Economic Espionage Act with civil federal trade secret legislation as well (full report at http://digbig.com/5bcqyk or summary from Docuticker at http://digbig.com/5bcqym). Meanwhile the European Commission is wrestling with how to make patent applications cheaper while still ensuring that they are available in all Community languages. The Council of Ministers supports the aim but is unimpressed with the possible solutions offered so far (reports at http://digbig.com/5bcqyn and http://digbig.com/5bcqyp or summary from Out-Law at http://digbig.com/5bcqyq). Then there’s the China factor. Speaking to the Economist magazine recently, Dave Brown of Thomson Reuters’ intellectual property division suggested that China was set to become the world’s top patent publisher by next year. Many of its patents are of dubious value, though. Thomson Reuters distinguishes between potentially innovative ‘invention patents’ and lower quality ‘utility model’ patents – and the Chinese produce plenty of those (http://digbig.com/5bcqyr). This is of course highly technical territory, into which non-specialist intermediaries should venture only with caution. But, as the Outsell report suggests, the opportunities for infopros to manage this increasingly important strategic asset are growing.

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