Technology Trends

This is classic Rumsfeld “known unknowns”. This is where Cipher’s ability to read 61m patents an hour comes into its own. The “unknown” is simple; the patent universe minus what you already know. By combining Cipher’s Machine Learning classification (using technologies you define) and Cipher’s clustering to analyse the rest, Cipher enables you to reveal the unknowns.

If you have a technology or product taxonomy and a known competitor set (or threat list), then Cipher has the capability to automate alerting and forecasting, so that you are always aware of the outlook for new patenting activity. Because Cipher filters out the noise from messy patent data, Cipher alerts can be directed straight to the subject matter expert responsible for that technology or business area.

It is inevitable that your competitors of tomorrow will be different from today, not least in this era of disruptive technologies such as cloud, AI/ML, robotics and the internet of things (IoT) more generally. The solution is to automate the scanning of the global landscape by reference to your technology taxonomy. Cipher alerts include the patenting activity of both the companies you know about and the new entrants and start-ups from around the world that you would never have known about otherwise.

The solution is one of definition. Our experience indicates that the question is never “what’s new in the world” but can be articulated as a technology scope. At this point Cipher’s ability to classify (tag) and monitor patenting trends and outlook, provides an objective and repeatable way of accessing data and analytics.

There isn’t one. That said, many technology trends take years to develop and much longer before products and services appear on the market. Monitoring patenting trends improves your understanding of the market, and often needs to be combined with other sources of competitive and market intelligence such as scientific literature, trade shows, etc.