Over the next decade, we will face a dramatic growth by 20 percent in the world’s population, reaching over 8.5 billion by mid-2030. Population growth and food security are intricately linked. Demand for food alone is estimated to increase by more than 50 percent, putting extreme pressures on the availability of natural resources and agricultural land, along with climate change affecting livestock production and crop yield.
To meet these challenges and increase food security and sustainability, agrochemical companies, agricultural machinery manufacturers, food and chemistry companies, and food service technology companies are looking at technological innovation—from precision farming and agricultural biotech-based solutions to alternative protein production.
Patents protect these companies’ technological investments, and without them the incentives to innovate—and help address some of the world’s most pressing food problems—would be diminished. But how do they make informed decisions on where to focus their R&D efforts and resources?
A competitive patent landscape analysis is a primary vehicle for identifying innovation trends, key players, and other leading indicators demonstrative of opportunities (and risks) that drive business—including patent filing—strategies.
What is a patent landscape analysis?
According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), “patent landscape reports provide a snapshot of the patent situation of a specific technology, either within a given country or region, or globally.”
A patent landscape analysis is a valuable tool for organizations to get a holistic view of a technology area to help assess innovation strategy and competitive advantage.
They can inform policy discussions, strategic research planning, patent prosecution strategies, or technology transfer, and shed insights into the validity of patents based on data about their legal status.
What insights does a patent landscape analysis provide?
A good example of the insights a competitive patent landscape analysis provides is WIPO’s Patent Landscape Report on Agrifood. It investigates patenting activity within the agrifood business with a comprehensive and up-to-date look at the latest patent trends in agrifood, including patents relating to the innovation and technological advancements across the sector which are set to revolutionize agricultural practices and food production.
Below is example of a competitive patent landscape analysis visualization of key innovations, dominant regions, and top players:
Source: World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) (2024). Agrifood. Patent Landscape Report Series. Geneva: WIPO. DOI: 10.34667/ tind.49840
Specifically, patent landscape analysis insights help organizations:
- Understand the evolution of a technology field at any given time, including where the technology is headed, which players are most involved, including enterprises and universities working in the technology of interest, and where innovation is taking place;
- Patent strength and competitive impact, considering how many times the patent has been cited by subsequent ones, geographic regions in which the patent is protected, and their respective market sizes;
- Identify competitors who are operating within a defined technology space, including which companies are (or have been) seeking patent protection to guide decisions by seeing which competitors are best positioned, and which ones are potential partners or licenses that would allow them to monetize their patent rights;
- Identify whitespace areas indicative of opportunity; and,
- Evaluate patent trends worldwide on a global scale to inform effective international filing strategies.
The agrifood business is just one example in which patent landscape analysis used for emerging and mature technology companies to assess where to invest in and pursue patents. The WIPO provides a host of other competitive patent landscape analysis reports across a myriad fields such as AI, COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, hydrogen fuel cells, healthtech, chemicals, hardware, and software.
How is a patent landscape analysis report created?
Competitive patent landscape analysis reports are built with a thorough approach that presents a holistic technology landscape with actionable insights. They involve:
- Understanding the technology and creating taxonomy;
- Sanitizing data by extracting relevant patent sets through search strategies;
- Categorizing the extracted data set in the taxonomy based on claim, title, and abstract of the patent;
- Analyzing trends through an assessment of the categorization and other parameters in the data set to drive insights that include key players and their focus, geographic footprint of the domain, patent filing and expiration trends, technology fragmentation, and more; and,
- Secondary research to capture litigation, licensing deals, market forecasts, focus of academia, and more than complement the landscaping insights.
The result is an intuitive and interactive web-based dashboard that presents the insights that inform patent filing strategy.
Uncovering opportunities with competitive patent landscape analysis
Intellectual property, and patents in particular, can provide significant competitive advantage and monetization opportunities. Not only that, but patents can also help effect positive long-term changes to global communities—such as innovation needed for food security. Patent landscaping provides a goldmine of information, and a path for companies to navigate the competitive landscape and capture innovation opportunities.
To see how a competitive patent landscape analysis can help you identify new opportunities and strengthen your IP position against competitors, let’s talk.
