White space is an area where there has been less patenting activity. It is an opportunity presented in an area where there is less invention, and there is scope for new developments. ‘White space analysis’ helps find a systematic method to identify the absence of a patent in a particular patent or technology. This helps in decision making whether the company or proprietor should enter and explore paradigms of these untouched areas or not. Tools like Patent Landscape Analysis and Competitive Intelligence analysis further help to research in the White Space. With the assistance of AI in white space analysis, an organisation gets to know and understand the patent landscape they operate into.
NEED FOR A WHITE SPACE ANALYSIS
- Identify Gaps: It helps in identifying and establishing gaps and intervals in the patent landscape where there is less patenting activity. This will facilitate focusing innovation and infrastructure on that particular area only.
- Business Opportunity: Areas lacking innovation are probably business opportunities. Pursuing, patenting, and transforming these opportunities into realities would need resources. This analysis helps showcase the various trends in the field of intellectual property and the prospective shift of industry towards a particular product in the future. Thereby, helping in the allocation of resources of the company.
- Portfolio Diversification: It helps in creating diverse portfolios by increasing patents for a company or patent/technology which provides a future edge over the competition.
- Understand Capabilities: Whitespace analysis helps in understanding at intervals, the company’s current innovation production capabilities. Further, it identifies those areas where there is a scope for improvisation.
TOOLS REQUIRED FOR ANALYSIS
The tools that help carry out these processes are free-to-patent databases as well as commercial paid databases readily available. The former type of databases includes Google patents, WIPO-Patentscope, The Lens, FreePatentsOnline, USPTO, Esp@cenet, Korean Institute of Patent Information (KIPRIS), Japan Patent Office (IPDL), Chinese Patent Office (SIPO) and several others. There are few commercially available databases which are STN, Questel-Orbit, Thomson Innovation, PatBase, TotalPatent, etc.
PATENT LANDSCAPE ANALYSIS
The patent landscape analysis is used to understand changes in the patent portfolio of a particular product or technology has evolved over the years. This helps R&D and IP department to focus on further development and patenting activity associated with it. A landscape report covers an overview of patent activity in a field of technology. Some of the main aspects covered include identifying the right subject domain of interest, analysing the patent portfolios of the relevant competitors, analysing patent portfolios of relevant companies, compiling the data and conducting a thorough competitive analysis.
The process involves narrowing down to specific fields, identifying the functional and structural elements of the patents, segregating them based on the IPC classification and then analyzing the data keeping in mind the requirements of the landscape report. Another type of domain specific analysis known as White-Space Analysis which is based on the Patent Landscape Analysis.
WHITE SPACE MAPPING
It is a method of finding white spaces in a less explored market. As the needs of society are, growing companies are trying to find the simplest ways to differentiate themselves from the innumerable existing technologies and products in the market. Thus, white space mapping is turning into a crucial exercise for understanding and capitalizing on the market.
WHITE SPACE ANALYSIS PROCESS
- Discovering holes or gaps within the business or company, where the business lacks patented technology. The company can either self-analyse the domain-related opportunities or can hire professionals for the same. It is important to check whether the internal and external parameters of the technology or that product matches the company’s interest as discussed above. Internal parameters include the company’s strengths, weakness, manpower etc., while external is the market situation, cost of products, customer’s nature etc.
- The segment of technologies needs to be identified where the new market entry is possible with the current strength of the company. These technologies or products are grouped based on their source, type, technology, application etc.
- Extraction of details is the next step. The patent and non-patent sources are analysed and there is the pooling of the segregated groups. The pooling consists of a group of all possible methods used for producing particular technology, sources of technology etc.
- Then resource allocation is an important step after gathering all the details necessary. These decisions are the ones where the company resources are divided based on an interdisciplinary view, with R&D, legal, business development, and marketing teams playing a part.
Whitespace analysis is performed to anticipate the possible opportunities and threats in a technological domain. The predicted analysis may provide reliability to the company to take the next investment step in their growth and venture with minimal risk.
REPORT
The whitespace analysis business report is divided into various segments for a better understanding of the clients these include-
- The objectives and understanding of the grey area study and any other segment catering to client requirements.
- The technology of interest includes keywords, patent classification codes, names of applicants etc. this is the approach methodology.
- The strength and weaknesses of the technology are based on the findings of the study which are reflected in the summary and visions segment.
- The existing problems are based on the market analysis and non-patent literature analysis present in the domain.
- The colour-coded heat map analytics show the intensity of the intellectual protection proprietors in a technology.
- Further, the market analysis provides insight into the current market status, customers present in the grey area, and assumptions about future growth or decline in the market.
The analysis can be done in both a manual mode and an automatic mode and the report can be delivered collectively in the form of excel files having a list of relevant patents and non-patent literature manually segmented according to the white-spaced domains and a PowerPoint report having research, recommendations, analytics, and insights.
CONCLUSION
White space mapping will increasingly become an important method for organizational learning and strategic planning, as the markets grow and develop. For any company to remain upbeat with the changing times and to stay in the market for a long time, it will need to be responsive and accepting towards shifting conditions in the market trends. Companies need a structure, which brings about the intuitive aspects of design thinking and puts it into action. Thus, conquering the white space with good strategies will help in the growth of the business.
