The Hidden Data Crisis in Patent Practice

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are transforming how many industries operate at a speed never seen before. In patent management and analysis, there is a huge opportunity for innovation and efficiency gains. The problem is that the underlying patent data is typically too unstructured and siloed to realize the full benefits.

In this blog post, we will discuss the state of patent data today and how it severely limits IP and R&D teams from capitalizing on AI’s potential. We’ll also be introducing Amplified, a platform that can help organizations transform their patent data into a strategic asset and unlock more meaningful patent analytics and insights.

Expert Samuel Davis

Founder/CEO | Amplified AI

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The Patent Data Disconnect

The state of patent data today severely limits IP and R&D teams, causing operational waste and missed opportunities. And, importantly, preventing the effective use of AI. Prior art search is a painful bottleneck, and work products aren’t designed for the digital age. The patent data crisis is holding companies and firms back from capitalizing on AI’s potential and realizing a value-driven IP program.

Prior art search is a painful bottleneck

Most people are prevented from accessing useful patent data when they need it because effective patent search today requires a high level of skill and specialized database tools. Even with skills and training, it is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process. As a result, patent search has become specialized and even patent attorneys and IP professionals regularly rely on expert patent searchers to get the information that they need.

While centralizing and specializing patent search does deliver cost savings through economies of scope and scale, it also creates bottlenecks in the flow of information. Patent insights cannot be obtained in real time. Even small delays compound over time causing a decision that should only take a day to instead take weeks or even months.

Additionally, the lack of real-time information takes flexibility out of the decision-making process. You can’t be agile and iterate or adjust as you learn. Search results must be condensed into a report which leaves out valuable context and nuance. The search process itself contains valuable learnings that are simply lost.

Work products aren’t designed for the digital age

Today’s digital work products should be easily accessible for both humans and machines to reuse. However, the reality is that current patent work products are unstructured, fragmented across various file types, and buried in file storage and IPMS systems. This makes it extremely difficult to analyze patents on a large scale or aggregate insights across sources.

While valuable sources of internal knowledge such as search reports are stored, they are not organized for future analysis. This limits their usefulness for people and renders them effectively unusable for machines. Past knowledge and context are quickly forgotten, and because rediscovering or remembering is high effort. Regrettably, this task is often neglected, leading to impaired decision making and unnecessary duplication of efforts, which ultimately results in wasted resources.

Consolidating patent data from multiple external sources and effectively communicating it to internal stakeholders is a time-consuming process. Often, IP teams are uncertain if the information they provide is actually being utilized or if its value is being realized. Meanwhile, busy R&D teams often find patent information overwhelming, causing them to neglect or put off patent-related tasks. A digital solution should facilitate seamless and simplified information sharing, while also enabling management and process improvement by monitoring and understanding user activity.

Consequences of poor patent data infrastructure

Now that we have explored the critical challenges associated with patent information workflows today, let us examine the broader implications of patent data infrastructure. Organizations that have not yet implemented patent knowledge management often encounter the following difficulties:

They struggle to obtain a comprehensive view of all patent assets and activities, often requiring extensive manual effort.

They miss out on opportunities to identify valuable insights, trends, and metrics.

Strategic patent analytics are limited to manual, small-scale, and ad-hoc efforts.

Investments in AI solutions yield lower-than-expected return on investment due to data deficiencies, lack of trust, and usability issues.

Doubt and uncertainty undermine strategic activities such as risk management for research and development, as well as patent portfolio development.

Building a Patent Knowledge Infrastructure

Organizations that swiftly establish a centralized, standardized, and enriched patent knowledge base will secure a competitive edge. And the best part? It’s simpler than you might imagine. Allow us to share a few insights we’ve gained from three years of assisting our customers in making this transformative shift.

Capturing knowledge as data

The integration of both internal and external patent data into a unified database is critical for turning patent information into actionable insights. Traditionally, trying to do this manually was prohibitively expensive to achieve at scale. However, with the advent of AI, it can now be accomplished effectively and affordably.

Cleaning and mapping patents to an ontology like key competitors, product lines, and technology labels is now cost-effective at any scale.

Annotation, tagging, and enrichment of patent text is part of today’s workflows and can be seamlessly harvested as metadata to improve findability, connections, and context.

Curating patents within a defined data architecture makes data integration and analytics smooth and reliable.

Having a structured knowledge base improves accessibility, removing silos and making it easier to automate information flows or assemble datasets for analysis. This is also powerful for innovation management who can finally get a holistic view of innovation activity and realize value-driven metrics that go beyond simple publication counts.

Your team’s patent work is a strategic asset

Rethink your approach to patent work. It’s not just about finding answers to immediate questions; it’s about curating data. For instance, a search report serves the purpose of addressing a specific question today, but it also involves the ongoing process of organizing and categorizing data with long-term value.

This shift in mindset also applies to the role of patent information professionals. Consolidating, cleansing, and enriching patent data should be a top priority for these team members.

With the right effort and planning, you can start implementing these changes today, even using free tools like Espacenet, PatentScope, and Excel. Alternatively, you can take a simpler and more efficient approach by leveraging AI-assisted search and classification. Together with a modern knowledge management tool this creates new and groundbreaking opportunities for measuring, managing, and streaming innovation.

AI democratizes the use of patent data

By leveraging AI to assist human search, we can democratize the utilization of patent data, fostering IP awareness across the entire organization and accelerating the curation of your organization’s knowledge.

Access to relevant patents in real-time empowers portfolio managers, in-house counsel, and inventors to make smarter and more strategic patent filing decisions. Rather than waiting weeks and scheduling numerous discussions, real-time access allows for a more flexible and responsive invention evaluation process.

To drive success, IP leaders should implement real-time processes for ideation, invention harvesting, and competitive risk monitoring, involving all stakeholders early and consistently. Overcoming the barrier of perceived inaccessibility to patent information is crucial so it is important to select user-friendly tools that deliver valuable results without a lot of effort. Tools that emphasize ease-of-use, quick response times, and the power of generative AI are already reshaping the landscape and challenging the status quo.

How Amplified can help

Amplified offers a transformative solution to leverage your patent data as a strategic asset, fueling innovation. Our platform seamlessly integrates cutting-edge AI with a user-friendly search interface and a robust knowledge management system. We specialize in crafting AI-assisted workflows that enhance efficiency today while harnessing your team’s expertise to create a powerful data asset that propels future growth.

With a fast and modern interface, powerful AI, and secure collaboration, patent search becomes simpler and information sharing is streamlined.

You can now apply your custom taxonomy to large data sets accurately and cost-effectively, thanks to custom classifiers.

Amplified effortlessly integrates with your existing workflows, allowing natural and efficient custom curation of your data. It combines a knowledge base, patent database, and workflow tool in one place.

Unlock the power of automatic recall of past relevant information, advanced AI workflows, and more robust management metrics.

Amplified strikes the perfect balance: approachable for R&D teams to enjoy using and powerful enough for patent search professionals to rely on.

Conclusion

With Amplified’s patent knowledge platform, you can create a comprehensive and contextually aware profile for all your patents. This profile, combined with advanced AI and search capabilities, enables easier discovery of relevant prior art and uncovers deeper strategic insights. Here are some key benefits:

Reduces decision-making time, minimizing information search and report waiting.

Enhances IP awareness across your organization, crucial for building a value-adding and strategic IP program.

Liberates budget and time for information professionals to focus on mission-critical work and strategic initiatives.

The patent data crisis is holding companies and firms back from capitalizing on AI’s potential and realizing a value-driven IP program. Developing a robust patent data infrastructure is a strategic asset that enhances operational efficiency, unlocks valuable management metrics, and empowers advanced AI applications. And thanks to the power of AI this has never been more achievable. To overcome the patent data disconnect and prepare for the future, the time for action is now.

Interested in this topic? Sam Davis, founder and CEO of Amplified, will be sharing details and concrete examples in his talk at IP Service World: “Unlocking a New World of Strategic IP Work Through AI and Data: What You Need to Know” (14:00 on November, 20)

We’d love to show you Amplified and provide a free trial. To find out more, visit our team at IP Service World, booth #IP41 or contact us online

At Amplified, we’re revolutionizing the way businesses work with patents. Our Enterprise-ready platform curates your patent knowledge to enable AI workflows and insights tailored specifically to your organization. Amplified’s AI-assisted search and classification delivers consistently high-quality results in a user-friendly interface ensuring that patent insights are accessible to more people with less effort. We combine that with secure collaboration to streamline and simplify complex workflows, from patent search, to competitive monitoring, to invention harvesting, and more.

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