As the name suggests, Technology Watch analysis provides an overview of the crucial activities that take place in a specific technology. Singhwal provides expert analysis reports based on requirements of the clients. Technology Watch involves the process of Capturing and analyzing the relevant data and disseminating and transmitting information and knowledge in a manner to keep the client informed regarding the main developments in a specific technology sector. Technology monitoring involves finding out the current development happening in the specific technology/domain by using recently published patent documents and non-patent documents such as scientific journals and presentations. The non-patent literature plays crucial role in technology monitoring process as it very clearly discuss more on the technology.
Technology watch helps research and development (R&D) and the investor to track the growth direction or advancement of specific technology. Having the knowledge on major developments in the particular technology, the R&D will work on the recent development and direct the investors to invest in the advanced technology.
Alternatively, the technology watch is also called as competitor monitoring which is very helpful for R&D to develop non-infringing product or process at right time by strategically taking position on competitor’s patent and patent application. By reading the patent specification and prosecution the patent experts advice R&D to develop non-infringing process at the initial stage of the product development. Also, it gives an idea to R&D to work towards the recent technology development thereby to complete with the competitor to secure good market presence. Technology watch also helps to assess the competitor’s activities and their stand in the market. Hence, it also helps the client to proceed their research which is in line with the competitor’s development.
Our team has vast experience in generating Technology watch reports in several subject domains. Technology watch is required in most Research & Development departments, to ensure that they are on track with respect to the growth and advancement of technology. This analysis is also known as competitive watch, strategic watch or technology/standard watch. In order to generate technology watch reports, our teams use several resources to get the most recent and trending information on any technology in question. Most resources include scientific journal, patent publications, non-patent literature, etc. There are several strategies that our technology experts incorporate to perform these reports.
Our team first provides an overall description regarding the present scenario of the particular technology using the data that is generated through analysis. The team then advices the clients regarding different strategies that the company may use to grow in that particular stream in terms of Research & Development. Most companies go forward with technology watch to assess their stand in the market. One essential aspect about technology watch is to assess activities of competitors.
As mentioned above, monitoring the patent and patent application helps to find out the competitor’s patent portfolio covering the technology of our interest. This monitoring helps R&D to consider non-infringement or invalidation strategy at the preliminary stage of product development thereby avoiding the confusion after the product development. Technology watch also helps investor to find out the opportunity for licensing the patent. Additionally monitoring the legal status of the patent and patent applications provides opportunity for the client to take right decision on the patent or patent application. Because, some of the patent applications withdrawn or abandoned for various reasons and those patent or patent application covers the technology what we are using or interested to use. Hence, monitoring the patent status helps the business team to take a strong decision at right time.
Assessing competitors provides a motivation to work towards bigger goals, as growth in technology is a non-stop activity. With respect to the assessment or analysis of the data that is collected, there are few constraints. A technology watch can be dependent on geographical areas, and may differ from one geography to another. There are some precautions to be taken while doing technology watch search. The technology which we are interested may be under vigorous R&D in specific geographic. Therefore, one has to consider the nature of the technology and do comprehensive in the specific search in addition to general search. Language barrier is another issue while searching the literature. Hence the expert who is conducting the search and preparing the report should be a multilingual person or the person should take help from the experts available in the particular geography. Once, the relevant document, either patent or non-patent literature, is retrieved in foreign language then it is important to translate it in the language of interest. This is because, imperfect translation will change the scope of the patent/ patent application or content in the non-patent literature thereby making a huge impact in the strategy.
Technology watch helps research and development (R&D) and the investor to track the growth direction or advancement of specific technology. Having the knowledge on major developments in the particular technology, the R&D will work on the recent development and direct the investors to invest in the advanced technology.
Alternatively, the technology watch is also called as competitor monitoring which is very helpful for R&D to develop non-infringing product or process at right time by strategically taking position on competitor’s patent and patent application. By reading the patent specification and prosecution the patent experts advice R&D to develop non-infringing process at the initial stage of the product development. Also, it gives an idea to R&D to work towards the recent technology development thereby to complete with the competitor to secure good market presence. Technology watch also helps to assess the competitor’s activities and their stand in the market. Hence, it also helps the client to proceed their research which is in line with the competitor’s development.
Technology monitoring involves both patent and non-patent literatures thereby to provide comprehensive and complete report on the recent development of the technology. One must strategically choose the right databases for searching. In addition some of the case, the R&D activity relates to specific technologies happen only in one or some the countries as the scientists in those countries are experts in the technology. Hence, it is very much important to consider the nature of the technology in order to conduct technology watch search using database of particular country. In general, databases maintained by all the patent offices across globe and databases providing scientific article and paid databases should be used for technology watch analysis. In some cases, technology watch is used to retrieve the expired patents which describe the particular technology. This kind of search helps the client to practice the technology disclosed in the expired patents without any legal issues.
The volume of data to be assessed will differ from report to report as it is based on the frequency at which the searches are conducted to collect relevant data. If the data is limited then the analysis of technology growth or technology scenario may also be limited. In technology watch reports, the Singhwal team gives higher importance to scientific journals and non-patent literature as it provides an insight into the most recent developments.
Patent literature takes longer to be available to the public and therefore what is available at a specific time period is based on the latest developments. To get the best exposure into current knowledge, referring to non-patent literature provides a stronger report. The conclusions will differ from report to report as it is based on the requirements of the client and also based on the strategy that is used. Hence, one should not completely rely on the patent documents to prepare technology watch report. Rather non-patent literature has to be considered for searching and preparing the report as the non-patent literature is available within no time. In general, the inventor files provisional or complete application then publish the technology in scientific literature in order to protect the invention. Also, the inventors describe the technology in very detailed manner in the non patent literature. They include more experimental and analytical and discussion part of the invention. Hence, the non patent literature is very useful to understand the technology and know the updated status of the technology.
Technology watch report preparation and analysis are very crucial part in the process. The report may include year wise development of the technology and the competitor’s contribution in the development. In addition the report may also include regarding the white space available for further development and the technology which is free to practice without any legal risk as the concerned patent term was expired or the patent application is withdrawn. Before, the technology watch activity get started, one must understand the purpose of the technology watch if it is conducted for monitoring competitor’s activity, finding out the white space available in the particular technology etc. This helps a lot to prepare the report accordingly.
A technology watch report is highly subject to a time period. Due to the speed at which there is advancement in technology, within months, there may be substantial changes in a technology sector. It is always advisable to have yearly reports for companies that are constantly in the process of developing new products. Hence the updated report is necessary to decide on crucial R&D activities and major investment decisions. Additionally, the technology watch report has to be designed/ prepared based on the purposes of the report such as white space analysis, licensing opportunity, understand the competitor’s activity etc.
Another advantage of tech watch is to explore potential cross licensing of the technology. The cross licensing opportunity is a win- win situation to both the patentee. Because, this process avoids the potential patent infringement or invalidation which was targeted by the other patentee initially. In addition, the cost associated with the litigation also can be avoided in view of the cross license.
We have prepared a technology watch report to understand the market scenario and patent filing activities in nanotechnology domain. We are specifically interested in the domain of nanomaterial, nanosensor, nanotools, nanocomposite material, nanotubes, nanodevices, nanoelectronics and nanolithography tools. Also we would like to understand the applications of the nanotechnology in the field of electronics, biomedical, defense, agriculture, automotive, cosmetics and energy. In addition, we have tracked the patenting activities of the competitors to understand how aggressively the competitors have been working in the technology. The report also helps us to explore licensing opportunity.
We made a comprehensive report. However due to confidentiality, a brief of the report is reproduced here. Also, here we made limitation in time period between 2010 and 2017.The report is for understanding/ knowledge purpose and the same should not considered for legal and scientific advice. We request the customer to contact Singhwal for full report.
Chart-I: Patent granted for the time period between Jan 2010- Jun-2018:
We explored specifically the nanotube domain to understand the sector wise development in pharmaceutical, electronics, engineering and energy sector. The below chart-II shows patent granted for the above said sector in the said time period. Most of the patents belongs to one sector, say for example engineering, also belongs to another sector for example elcetronics. The detailed evaluation is part of the full report.
Chart-II: Sector-wise patent granted for nanotube.
The below chart-III shows year wise patent granted for nanotube. There is almost double the amount of patent granted in 2015-2016 as compared to 2013-2014.
Chart-III: Year wise patent grant
At Singhwal we consider each report with a new strategy. As technology advances, the strategies to analyze these technologies are also revised. Singhwal’s team always provides a thorough overview of the present scenario of a technology sector, based on client specific requirements in the most efficient way. We are constantly working towards providing the most comprehensive technology watch report for our clients.
