Many critical business decisions are influenced by the enforceability of patents. Precise information about the legal status of own or third-party patents is important for a large number of use cases:
- Monitor competitors’ approved and abandoned patents
- Discover which companies are filing an opposition to your own patents
- Track changes in ownership of important patents
- Reduce the number of patents required for effective analysis
An analysis of the legal status of your competitors' patent portfolios can yield valuable competitive insights. For instance, an increase in patent applications by a company new to your technology sector may indicate you have a new competitor to deal with. Conversely, an increase in patent abandonment by an existing competitor may indicate that they are withdrawing from the field.
In the field of new product development and related FTO analysis, legal status can help to identify potential risks and opportunities – such as which competitors are filing in the same area or whether oppositions have been filed against existing patents.
Determining the expiration date of patents which could affect the commercial launch of a new product or the publication of a new technology is also helpful in this context. Accounting for the remaining lifetime of a patent, it’s possible to quickly evaluate licensing or sales opportunities. Understanding the remaining lifetime of a patent is also key to assessing the validity of patents for potential M&A targets.
The legal status information box in PatentSight contains information about all legal events related to a patent family and allows you to search and track specific country events or all events, such as fee payments, examination requests, oppositions, national phase entries, patent maintenance and patent expiration.
Using advanced search filters, it’s possible to actively search for patents that are about to expire or that have been challenged in opposition or nullity proceedings. In addition, PatentSight can be used to search for patents that are active in a specific authority or within a specific group of authorities. This makes it possible to analyze patent protection per jurisdiction and to plot the worldwide patent coverage of companies – overall or in certain technology fields.
Already expired or invalidated patents, as well as rejected or withdrawn applications, are irrelevant for many strategic analyses. That's why PatentSight makes it possible to perform analyses on active patents only – and with just one click.
