Universal Technology Taxonomy

Delivering transparency on who owns patented technology globally

The first taxonomy to provide a consistent and objective analysis of patented technologies owned by all companies globally.

Harnessing the latest in machine learning, the Cipher Universal Technology Taxonomy (UTT) provides a fast and effective way to:

understand global technology trends
compare the innovation profile of companies, competitors and technology landscapes.

Watch a short summary video of the UTT

On this page:

Why a UTT?
Technology classes
FAQs
Benefits of the UTT
UTT articles
Cipher Vision

The Cipher Universal Technology Taxonomy (UTT) is organised by reference to Technology Superclasses (10) and Subclasses (122).

The taxonomy was designed to ensure that the 44m+ active patents and applications globally are equally represented.

In the UTT, the user can view all patented technologies by:

A single organisation or by a group of companies
Technology trends – either globally or nationally.

The UTT includes patent intelligence relating to:

Size, geography, and activity
Quality, compound annual growth rate (CAGR), or cost
Risk – both from operating companies and from non-practicing entities (NPEs)

Free report on semiconductors using UTT

Why UTT?

Why is it important to understand what a company owns?

Patented technology is a core strategic asset. Information about the intellectual property rights owned by a company is not made available as part of its annual or quarterly accounts. Yet 80% of the value of a company is intangible. In an era where innovation is critical to success and value creation, understanding what technology a company is protecting is essential. Put another way, how can you understand a company if you don’t know what strategic assets it owns?

Do companies generally own patents in just a few of the technology classes?

There is no hard and fast rule. For companies with many divisions or activities expect their technology to fall in many categories. Even companies with a narrower focus still have patents relating to a dozen or so technologies. The insight comes from the trends within the categories. Which are growing/declining? Where are the hot-spots for litigation? What are the differences in international protection?

Why is UTT different to Patent Office CPC codes?

There are over 300,000 CPC (and a similar number of IPC) codes. These help Patent Offices identify prior art when examining patent applications. They are not useful for identifying patented technologies and do not purport to classifying patented technologies.

Download the Universal Technology Taxonomy

Full UTT layout

The UTT can give you an objective view of patented technologies globally and also provide details of:

10 technology Superclasses
122 technology Sub-classes and their scope definitions

FAQ

What’s the difference between the Universal Technology Taxonomy and Cipher Custom Taxonomies?

The UTT as the name suggests is Universal. It analyses the entire patented world through a common lens. Custom taxonomies are created by companies to see the world through their technology taxonomy. They are much more specific as to scope – and typically only cover part of the technology landscape

What’s the difference between Cipher’s Universal Technology Taxonomy and clustering?

The universal technology taxonomy is a fixed taxonomy that classifies patents into one of the defined classes. Cipher clustering (unsupervised ML) analyses patents into the ‘buckets’ most relevant to the selected company. The UTT is the only approach that provides a consistent view of all patents globally.

Does the UTT provide a better classification than say SIC, CPC or NAICS codes?

SIC and NAICS codes classify companies by their primary activity or principal source of revenue. They form a bedrock for economic and financial analysis. But there is a big difference between what a company does and the technologies that it chooses to protect.CPC codes could give you this answer, there are over 300,000 of these – too many to get your head around or to provide any form of meaningful comparison. Also, there is a predictive element to investment in patents. Patenting activity provides insights into what a company is likely to do in the future. This is totally outside the scope of existing corporate classification systems.

The benefits of having the Universal Technology Taxonomy

Articles, podcasts and source material featuring the UTT

Universal Technology Taxonomy – Insight

Introducing the world’s first Universal Technology Taxonomy. This article sheds light on why Cipher launched the world’s first universal technology to classify patents and example analysis using UTT.

Inventions & Innovators powering the Energy Transition

A detailed view of the leading innovators to watch based on recently-published inventions and applying weightings to technologies which enable the energy transition.

Oil and Gas Supermajors – Energy Transition

Our updated report finds that supermajors’ technology innovation is more evident in the Materials, Mechanical, and Sensors & Optics categories.

A global view of innovation

This Cipher report provides a breakdown of the world’s inventions and activity into individual technology sectors.

Sustainability and detergents: environmentally friendly innovation

Our report on patent owners in the Sustainable Detergents space identifies the firms producing new formulations and the countries leading innovation.

Life Sciences top patent publishing list

Life Sciences is a clear leader out of all of the patent categories tracked to chart the pace of innovation. This was one of the lead findings in Cipher’s recent global report.

Machine Learning for Patents

Episode 3 in Season 2 of the Cipher Vision Podcast series features Tony Trippe, founder of ML4patents.com. Tony explains how patents are an “amazing source of information” and why machine learning will help businesses make decisions far more quickly.

The Cipher team are able to use the supervised machine learning platform to scan patent activity for any company in the world.

Submit details of the three companies you’d like us to review and we’ll do the rest. Try us out now.

UTT Exclusive Insight

Peer review request

Example Taxonomies by Industry sector

FMCG

Incorporating both Food&Drink and Beauty and Personal care developed in collaboration with Mintel

FinTech

The types of classifiers in a FinTech technology would be in sectors such as banking services, payment technologies, and security.

MedTech

Strategic insight for the next generation of diagnosis and treatment for data driven healthcare

Aerospace and Defence

Technologies within this taxonomy include: air turbine starters; electromagnetics; flight management systems for drones; head mounted displays (HMDs); and virtual cockpits.

Technology

Navigate complex landscapes when every company is a technology company.

Semiconductor

Supporting the sector in times of fast pace and high stakes technology evolution

Industrial Automation

A patent taxonomy developed at the heart of Industry 4.0, including 3D printing, robotics and connectivity

Rewarding Innovation

Episode 11 in Season 3 features Ann Chaplin, General Counsel and Company Secretary, Qualcomm. Ann joined us to discuss how strong IP rights foster innovation globally, stressing the need for balanced regulation and increased diversity in inventors.

Innovation Not Regulation

Episode 10 in Season 3 features Andrei Iancu, Partner at Sullivan & Cromwell and former Director of the USPTO – who joined us to discuss maximizing innovation.

Democratization of Innovation

Episode 9 in Season 3 features Keith Bergelt, CEO, Open Invention Network, who joined us to explore the relationship between IP and open source, sharing the benefits and challenges of collaboration and OIN’s role in preserving patent freedom.

Putting Passion in IP

Episode 8 in Season 3 features Anjanette Lecher, Director, Intellectual Asset Management at Corning Incorporated. She shared with us her love of intellectual property, discussing how to take a customer centric approach when analysing and presenting data, adopting the correct tools to support efficiency and visualizations.

SDGs through a patent lens

Episode 7 in Season 3 features Marco Richter, Global Head of Customer Success at LexisNexis Intellectual Property. He highlights the important role that patents play in helping us to become more sustainable, discussing the benefit of measuring innovation in relation to the UN Sustainable development Goals (SDGs).