Recession as a catalyst for change
Outsell says:
“Yet new opportunities for patent information and technology providers are present – providers and investors just need to know where to look. COVID-19 has led companies to cut their outsourced patent search services, creating a need for tools to support patent search and analysis tasks in-house for novice users. Providers need to converge different offerings to add value and target the adjacent services market by automating expensive manual services. Advanced semantic search, comprehensive global patent coverage, rich user interfaces, and AI tools are no longer product differentiators – they are considered standard features.
The pandemic and resulting recession are making customers focus on protecting their core businesses for survival. However, the messaging of many patent solution providers is still stuck in 2019, emphasizing their innovative AI tools instead of how this technology can help companies cut costs, such as by replacing outside manual services. Indeed, hyped-up language about cutting-edge AI may actually work against providers by creating the impression that it is a luxury and not a core need. Providers need to replace such messaging with language about ROI, productivity, and efficiency capabilities.
The messaging needs to target C-suite executives who are less likely to care about keyword clustering, semantic search, patent classification analysis, and so on. Instead, these decision-makers are more concerned with how it will add revenue, cut costs, or get their products to market faster.”
The Cipher view is that as with remote working, video conferencing, home exercise, the pandemic will accelerate many of the digital transformations that have been on the patent agenda, but perhaps not a priority. Now the focus is both on spend and efficiency. The reality is that the significant patent budgets can no longer escape scrutiny and slow and expensive patent search will no longer be acceptable.