Mining Patent

Mining patents allow inventors and patent holders to dig deeper into the assets and information associated with granted patents. Patents in the current economy continue to become more valuable and transparent while involving additional people in the approval process and infringement claims. As the atmosphere around patents continues to shift, new methods for analysis are being developed and implemented for improved insight.

Two recent examples show the importance of patent analytics, as well as the impact on the value of a portfolio of patents.

  • A major Canadian bank doubled the value of the patent portfolio held by RIM, which occurred after a mention of the bank's stand-out portfolio, based on patent research.
  • In an analysis of patent assets held by AOL, the results in two studies were very different from one another. When Microsoft purchased AOL, one valuation of the company was almost an exact match to the price paid.

These cases show the importance of accurate and well-researched analytics in patent and valuation cases.

How to Carry Out Data Mining to Patent Analysis

The information about data mining that is currently available can be applied to analyzing patents. Using this information can help those involved in the patent analytics field gain insight into providing analytics that offer value to the patent holder.

The first thing to understand is the importance of context in data mining. This is especially accurate with data relating to patents. Numbers and raw data won't tell the full story; instead, the history and context of the data provide more insight. It is also important to recognize the importance of subject matter experts when pulling patent data. Those with experience in a specific subject can help make more sense of the information while applying their expertise. Working with subject matter experts is valuable, but it is also critical to involve analysts with experience in the patent field.

The next step is relying on data scientists who can assist with the analysis of data and focus on the scope of the project. A data scientist will typically refer to microscale data collections, which include a smaller number of documents or even a single entity. After microscale comes mesoscale, which includes either a collection of individuals or organizations that are closely related, or hundreds of documents. The last scale for a data scientist is macroscale, which could include entire countries or fields, or thousands of documents.

When analyzing data, scientists will use various techniques and tools, depending on the level. It is important to understand the differences between each scale before the analysis begins. A data scientist must not rely on just one piece of evidence or data source when drawing conclusions or providing the analysis.

When dealing with data, it is critical to use sources that have been collected under several rules or different ways. By collecting data in multiple ways, the risk of generating false numbers or artifacts is lower. Additionally, if several methods to collect and analyze data have been used and the conclusions are the same, it is more likely that the observation is accurate and not based on an error with the collection method or an unexpected bias. 

With all of these factors in mind, those involved in the data mining process can look at an example of a popular technique for patent analysis that can help determine the patent documents' value. A patent citation is a major indicator of the value of a patent and has been for many years.

Mining and Resources Patents

In certain countries, exploring and mining resources is mainly dominated by large companies. In the resources and mining sector of the Asia-Pacific region, international interest in the opportunities and developments is steadily increasing. A patent attorney serves as a liaison for clients and opportunities, especially in countries with economies that rely heavily on resources, such as Malaysia and China. One area in which intellectual property rights are critically important on an international scale is water management in a sustainable manner.

Patent attorneys are looking into several types of resources patents, including:

  • Water treatment
  • Mining processing
  • Wellbore drilling and evaluation
  • MIning services
  • Completions and production
  • Pressure pumping
  • Water recycling
  • Materials technology
  • Process and pipeline services
  • Instrumentation and control
  • Casing, tubing, and running

If you need help with mining patents, you can post your legal need on UpCounsel's marketplace. UpCounsel accepts only the top 5 percent of lawyers to its site. Lawyers on UpCounsel come from law schools such as Harvard Law and Yale Law and average 14 years of legal experience, including work with or on behalf of companies like Google, Menlo Ventures, and Airbnb.