Have you ever struggled to tie your shoelaces? Gary Hammerslag did too, which is why he founded BOA, the leader in performance footwear, in 2001.

As a parent, Gary found himself constantly bending over to help his kids tie their snowboard boots and hockey skates. Not only was this uncomfortable, but it was also disruptive. Each time their laces untied, Gary’s kids had to stop what they were doing to tie their boots and skates. The redundancy and inconvenience of constantly tying shoelaces led to an ah-ha moment: lacing systems needed to be improved, and Gary was ready for the challenge.

After numerous prototypes and tests, the BOA Fit system was born – creating a fast, effortless, precision fit. Using a novel closure system, BOA replaced shoelaces with a dial.

With BOA’s dial closure, shoes are fastened snuggly to enhance performance without interruption. This innovative closure revolutionized everything from snowboarding to cycling, and even medical bracing. Their first two brand partners, K2 and Vans, launched the first BOA-powered snowboard boots to consumers in 2001. These days, most snowboarding brands use this technology, and so do many other industries including golf, trail running, and cycling.

Emerging Competitors

For Bobby Dickensheets, the Director of IP and Legal at BOA, IP management, and competitive intelligence are key parts of his role. As such, he says, “Having access to data and analytics about a company’s innovation and IP is extremely important.” Dickensheets is responsible for maintaining BOA’s extensive IP portfolio of 200+ patents, as well as tracking and reporting on their top and emerging competitors.

To connect the dots on all this information and inform strategic decision-making, while also monitoring the industry, means it’s imperative BOA has access to accurate, updated, global data. To address this, BOA turned to PatSnap.

 “Prior to using PatSnap we used other similar patent searching software, but I found those systems weren’t nearly as user-friendly. There was not a lot of searching or keyword ability, so we spent a lot more time having to read through pages and pages of patent disclosures.” The goal was to “generate more value, faster, from insights into specific company’s IP and technology trends.” PatSnap offered intuitive innovation intelligence, where previous services were “strictly just a patent database.”

Dickensheets states his favorite part of PatSnap is the organization of the data. “PatSnap takes so much data and puts it into a platform where you can organize and customize it. It’s much easier to digest when you have a snapshot of all the data rather than trying to pull information from all over the place and organize it yourself. Essentially, PatSnap makes our IP processes much easier.”

Competitive Monitoring

In the performance footwear space, BOA is the largest company. In order to maintain their position in the market, they need to be well-informed on new startups as well as competitors’ strategies. PatSnap enables BOA to seamlessly uncover these insights on an ongoing basis. “With a simple search, I am able to see what our competitor’s strategy is from a patent standpoint, their size, the areas they’re working in, and set up automatic alerts to ensure we stay up to date and on top of them.” Using PatSnap to monitor emerging players and competitors allows BOA to pivot in certain areas, create new strategies for enforcement, and pilot brands to fight competitors off.

Plus, PatSnap helps BOA with international decision-making. Since their product is often sold overseas where many of their competitors operate, monitoring global competition and strategizing based on the data gives them a competitive advantage. Based on PatSnap’s competitive tracking alerts, BOA has even filed lawsuits against competitors.

Keeping in Pace with Innovation

Beyond competitive intelligence, BOA prioritizes keeping a pulse on relevant, emerging innovation and technology trends. This provides them with a 360-degree understanding of where products are heading so they can tailor their offerings based on customer needs. With PatSnap, Dickensheets can report (from an IP standpoint) on “the trends we are seeing in different categories, and therefore how we can position ourselves, whether that be through new product design or new brand partners.”

Better Business Decisions

Since transitioning to PatSnap Dickensheets says, “we have the clearest view of our competitive landscape that we’ve ever had.” BOA is making better business decisions, especially internationally, enabling them to maintain its top position in the industry. Some of the key features that help the BOA team include:

• File Wrapper Alerts: In workspaces, Dickensheets can set file wrapper alerts. “I think those alerts are extremely helpful, I’ve identified the key patents in our industry that I want to keep an eye on, so I’m alerted if it expires, if they’re letting it go, or if it goes from pending to issued, ensuring I am up to date on their legal status.”
• Workspaces: To stay on top of competitors and trends, Dickensheets organizes different companies’ patent portfolios into various workspaces. “It allows us to keep track of different portfolios, not only to see where they’re encroaching on our rights and perhaps stepping on our toes but also to see trends in innovation throughout the footwear industry.”
• Similar patent search: With a similar patent search, Dickensheets can “look at similar patents to BOA’s, and quickly find unknown or smaller competitors who may have been operating under the radar.”  

Most impressive to the BOA team is PatSnap’s customer-centric approach. “PatSnap provides ample information and talks us through whatever we need.” He also notes “the team is very responsive to feedback, in the past, I have made feature requests, and within months seen them implemented in the tool, so I feel they are truly receptive to what their customers actually need.”

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TuSimple is an autonomous trucking company disrupting the logistics industry. Based in San Diego, the company is developing a commercial-ready level 4 (SAE) fully self-driving solution. TuSimple’s trucks have driven more than 10 million cumulative miles through testing, research and freight delivery, representing one of many industry firsts for the autonomous driving technology company.

Three drivers for TuSimple are to increase safety, decrease transportation costs, and reduce carbon emissions. Through the development of the company’s leading autonomous driving systems, purpose-built autonomous trucks, and the creation of the TuSimple Autonomous Freight Network, TuSimple is now a partner of choice for shippers and carriers. Its cutting-edge technology is transforming how freight is moved in nearly every way.

Strategically Leveraging IP

Paul Liu, Global Head of IP at TuSimple, says “having access to data and analytics about a company’s innovation and technology is a part of our IP strategy and daily routines. This information allows us to have a better understanding of how we may want to leverage IP once we have it, as well as a direction we could be moving our research efforts towards.”

A key part of Liu’s role, beyond managing TuSimple’s team of attorneys, patent agents, and paralegals is to ensure the company’s IP aligns with its business goals. With hundreds of patent assets under management, the TuSimple portfolio expands across the globe and securely positions the company as an industry leader. To ensure TuSimple’s expansive portfolio is managed efficiently and effectively, Liu needs insight into the industry trends and competitors filing strategies.

“In an industry where there are a lot of incumbents and new entrants to the space, competitive intelligence is crucial. Not only to understand areas associated with risks and where our competitors are actively filing, but it’s also crucial in helping TuSimple more effectively leverage the patents we already have and analyzing where there may be potential white space to exploit.”

Collecting and connecting the dots on all this information so it can be used to inform decision-making presents a complex challenge. “We often need data from a wide variety of sources, beyond strictly patent data, so it is important we have a well-rounded solution when it comes to innovation intelligence.”

“PatSnap offers us a global solution that provides more and better data, as well as a user-friendly and effective solution compared to the other providers out there.”

A Global Solution

To address this, TuSimple turned to PatSnap. Prior to using PatSnap the TuSimple team relied on open-source software but found too many limitations with their search capabilities. Liu notes, “They aren’t enterprise-level tools, so they lack the data we needed.” The key elements these solutions were missing include global patent data, non-patent literature, the thought leaders in a particular technology space, and white space analysis.

“PatSnap offers us a global solution that provides more and better data, as well as a user-friendly and effective solution compared to the other providers out there.” PatSnap’s easy-to-use interface allows users to answer various complicated questions related to patent data. Being able to visualize the data, such as patent trees, helps Liu accelerate the decision-making processes in a fast-paced industry and stay ahead of competitors.

TuSimple can use this information to assess priorities and whether they move forward with a project and its associated patent protection. Having analytics allows Liu to quickly examine:

• What is already out there?
• What are the risks?
• What the industry looks like?
• How much activity is there to benchmark TuSimple against the norm?

Since TuSimple transitioned to PatSnap, Liu is making faster, more impactful, and data-driven decisions. The company has a clearer picture of the patents and literature that are – and will be – transforming the autonomous trucking/freighting industry. Some of the key features that help Liu obtain this picture are:

• Patent family trees: Having the visual of patent families allows Liu to “quickly understand global filing strategies as well as how a patent has progressed over time.”
• Multilingual support: Having the ability to search in multiple languages, as well as translations embedded within PatSnap enables TuSimple to have a better understanding of the global patent landscape, and “effectively enables us to make faster decisions that are impactful and more data-driven.”
• Smart image: Having AI annotated figures within patent documents “has been a very useful value add, we can quickly look at a patent asset directly, and understand what it is and what it does.”

With PatSnap, TuSimple’s internal searches are completed in a fraction of the time. “PatSnap saves us from doing more onerous searches on free tools.” Most impressive to Liu is how integrated PatSnap is, from databases to multilingual support, to the different types of analyses you can do, it provides a one-stop shop for all patent analyses on a day-to-day basis.

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NORMA Group is an international market leader in engineered and standardized joining and fluid-handling technology. Supplying customers in over 100 countries with more than 40,000 product solutions, NORMA supports its customers and business partners in responding to global challenges such as climate change and the increasing scarcity of resources.  

The company’s innovative joining solutions are used in water supply, irrigation and drainage systems, vehicles with conventional and alternative drive systems, ships and aircraft, as well as buildings. NORMA leads with world-class engineered joining technology, which is why the world, and many industries readily acknowledge the company’s next-generation water management solutions. The industries and communities NORMA serves are growing exponentially, and as they do, they are becoming critically reliant on innovative, robust infrastructures for support.

Competitive Industry & Business

Robert Kusche, the in-house patent counsel at NORMA Group, says “competitive intelligence and innovation data are essential to our development strategies. We use this information as a part of our daily routines, not only in the IP department but in engineering and R&D as well.” A key part of Kusche’s role is keeping pace with competitive IP and technology intelligence to understand and assure freedom to operate in the many different markets the company serves as well as new trending technologies.

When Kusche joined NORMA, he used PatSnap to connect disparate innovation data. He started the process by setting up automatic alerts for the different fields of technology NORMA operates in. “These alerts are sent monthly, which provide me an easy place to analyze the results, and then discuss the results with our technical teams – first with key users and then in the broader global group with all the respective people that are involved in a specific field of technology.” In addition, PatSnap provides NORMA with the necessary tools to ensure freedom to operate when undertaking new projects.

Patent and R&D insights and data play a critical role to NORMA. Kusche says, “It’s very important we are aware of other parties’ patents, especially in the field of automotive suppliers because this is a very competitive industry and a very competitive business. Not only to understand the R&D efforts of our competitors, but also to ensure we have freedom to operate and aren’t infringing with our various ongoing projects.”

Collaboration is Key

Kusche notes that when it comes to innovation and patent work, the process is always collaborative. “The engineers can’t do this alone, nor can I do it alone. We must do it together and that’s also what’s most successful.”

The engineers have technical experience in the product and fields of business the company works in, and Kusche has patent experience to be able to read and interpret claims. Through this collaboration, Kusche says, “I am able to tell them what is in the claim and to discuss what is in their product, if it is covered by that claim or not, and how we can design around it.”

Workspaces is also a key tool the NORMA Group uses for collaboration purposes. With the results from Kusche’s ongoing alerts, he has several workspaces organized for each of the technical fields where he can manage the results. “I can select the important patents and add them to their respective workspace which is also shared with the engineering teams. We then classify the results together, adding customer comments based on patent relevancy or interest.”

Extensive Time Savings

According to Kusche, PatSnap also provides NORMA with significant time savings when it comes to innovation. “When using my workspace to directly distribute the results to our respective technician or engineer. This saves us a lot of time, and at the end of the day, time is money.”

Moreover, Kusche pointed out that PatSnap not only provides benefits in terms of time savings but also gives NORMA a competitive advantage. He added, “By using PatSnap and adopting new processes, we can now monitor third-party patents much more effectively than we ever could before with any other tools.”

Some of the key features that help Kusche’s team maintain this advantage are:

• Dual View: One of Kusche’s favorite features is dual view, he says “having the two screens enables you to see all the data, claims, bibliographic data, and images, all at one time, making it super easy to analyze patents.”
• Translations: The machine translation offered adds convenience and efficiency “In the past if there was something interesting in another language, we would be able to see the image and would have to use another translation tool, but it was tedious and not always a good representation. PatSnap’s machine translation provides all the information we need at one time, which is a really great feature.”
• Semantic Search: The semantic, or similar patents search is “very useful when you have found something of interest, and you want to see if there is something out there that is similar. It very quickly gives you are overview of what is out there in this specific topic.”

He emphasized, “PatSnap’s dual view and the machine translation being available within one tool is something I have never seen before in any other tool, to me those features are truly perfect and make my day-to-day much easier.”

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Oxiteno is a leading multinational producer of surfactants and specialty chemicals in the Americas, headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil with operations in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Its customers are among the largest companies in the world, spanning multiple sectors from crop solutions, home and personal care, coatings, oil and gas, industrial application, nutrition & health, and functional fluids. In an industry facing regulatory changes on a constant basis, Oxiteno’s Research & Development (R&D) team has achieved a leadership role in innovation and chemical product development with the help of the PatSnap connected intelligence platform.

Maintaining industry leadership

Bianca Campos, a member of Oxiteno’s Innovation Management Office (IMO), says “technology and competitive intelligence are a major part of our innovation strategy, and we use this information as part of our daily routine, not just in R&D but in the business as a whole.” A key part of the IMO team’s role is keeping pace with competitive IP and technology intelligence to better understand and assure freedom to operate in the many markets the company serves, as well as trending technologies. That insight plays a critical role in developing new products and solutions in an industry where innovation is constantly changing. “As an organization at the forefront of the chemicals industry, technology, and competitive intelligence is crucial. It’s not only important to anticipate trends and envision the R&D efforts of our competitors, but also crucial in helping Oxiteno more effectively collaborate with our customers and offer solutions that will meet sustainability innovation that is yet to come.” Collecting and connecting the dots on all this information to inform decision-makers presents a complex challenge. “The chemical industry is a top ten industry when it comes to patent filing, with over three million patents filed, and it is important to have access to as much data as possible on published patents,” adds Campos. According to Campos, “an additional challenge was developing an “IP (intellectual property) consciousness” at Oxiteno that went “beyond the innovation area to the business units.” This means providing Oxiteno’s business units with meaningful innovation intelligence beyond patent data, such as chemical structures and regulatory information.

Actionable insights in one place

To address these challenges, Oxiteno turned to PatSnap. Prior to using PatSnap, “we had to put a lot of pieces together from different sources.” With PatSnap though, “we now have almost all of the necessary information in one place that is very user-friendly and easy to use.” Ultimately, Campos says, the goal is to “generate value to the business through actionable insights.”One of the main areas in which Oxiteno uses PatSnap is to support R&D workflows by searching patent data to answer questions like “what are competitors working on?” and “how has the technical challenge been solved by others based on patent literature?” Other areas include identifying white spaces, aligning innovation and IP goals, and feeding business strategy. With Oxiteno’s 2019 sustainability mandate, PatSnap’s role expanded to help forecast sustainability considerations and opportunities.

Knowing your customer

Oxiteno excels at understanding not only where its customers are now, but where they are going in the future, and Campos says this is an area where PatSnap provides high value. In one specific instance, Campos says “our technical and development team needed to understand the next generation of a particular customer’s products because we had a strategic meeting with them coming up to discuss partnership possibilities.” According to Campos, PatSnap provided information “not only information on the customer’s recent patent filings, but on the overall innovation strategy of the customer.” This allowed the Oxiteno team to understand where Oxiteno’s portfolio of expertise and solutions fit into this customer. “As a result, our team was more prepared and confident in the meeting.”

A clearer, comprehensive picture

Since Oxiteno transitioned to using PatSnap, Campos has a clearer, comprehensive picture of chemicals and patents that are – and will be – transforming the chemical industry. Some of the key features that help Campos obtain this picture are:

• PatSnap’s Workspace feature is especially useful because all the relevant information is in the same place, Campos says. “It’s very easy and very quick to find what I need.”
• The Semantic Search function is very powerful because “I am not simply depending on selected keywords. So I know I’m not missing anything.”
• The Insights and Discovery module are “exceptional to connect the technology with the business and innovation strategy.”

She also enjoys having the ability to add her own comments, classify risks, and perform analyses in the same tool that she is using to search, read and evaluate the documents. “I can also set up specific alerts.”When asked, Campos is happy to encourage others to try PatSnap for themselves. “The customer services team is amazing because I can ask them questions, describe my expectations and discuss the analyses I’m performing. Perhaps most importantly, like Oxiteno, they have a mindset for innovation and are open to new ideas and approaches.”

Oxiteno’s innovation story by the numbers

• 48 new product developments delivered in 2020.
• 50+ granted patents in 14 countries.
• 500 trademarks registered around the world.
• 130+ employees allocated in R&D.
• 2 global R&D centers and 3 R&D facilities.

The need

• Anticipate trends and envision the R&D efforts of competitors.
• Collaborate with customers and offer solutions that will anticipate the future of the chemicals industry.
• Enable AI-driven connected innovation intelligence in its R&D efforts.
• Gain a deeper understanding of the chemical industry landscape.

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Robotic surgery, also known as Robot-assisted surgery, is gaining notoriety in the healthcare industry due to its precision, dexterity, superior control, device multifunctionality, and ergonomic abilities. It allows surgeons to operate without hand tremors, which creates greater control in the operating room.

Recent research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that robotic-assisted surgery is not only safer, but it also improves patient recovery time. What’s more, patients experience a fourfold reduction in the prevalence of blood clots, and a twofold reduction in chance of readmission. Robotic surgery is increasingly becoming synonymous with minimally invasive as it reduces downtime, scarring, and the chance of complications.

Mimicking the Surgeon’s Arms

Momentis Surgical is a surgical robotics company located in Israel and Florida. It specializes in robots for gynecological surgery but is quickly expanding to new markets as a potential solution for many other indications such as , trans-umbilical, transoral, transrectal and transcutaneous surgeries and procedures. They were named in Fast Companies prestigious list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2022.

The company’s developments are multi-disciplinary, involving mechanics (structure), electrical engineering (actuation) and software that controls the robotic arms. The software is in charge, among other things, of the translation between the controllers that are managed by the surgeon and the robotic arms that perform surgery within a patient.

Momentis is the first company to successfully perform gynecological surgery in a transvaginal approach rather than laparoscopic approach, meaning they don’t have to perform any incisions in the abdomen. Momentis’ robots are designed to mimic the configuration of the surgeon’s arm; it has a shoulder, elbow, and wrist segments, and is equipped with human dexterity, superhuman flexibility, and 360-degree articulation. It’s built to feel natural, and functions very similarly to the way you operate your own body. Momentis’ Anovo medical device is the only of its kind with FDA approval, granted in February 2021, and even created its own category within the FDA.

The Tip of the Innovation Iceberg

Yossi Rozhenko is the Intellectual Property (IP) Director at Momentis Surgical. In his role he’s responsible for taking the IP created by the engineers and building out the best protection strategy while simultaneously keeping Momentis from encroaching on other companies’ territory. To Rozhenko, having access to innovation and technology insights is “critical.”

Rozenkho describes IP with the likes of an iceberg, “the information you get out of patent literature is similar to the famous iceberg image, where you can see the tip above water (equivalent to what you see in the market) but most of the iceberg, or in this case information, is below the water.” Having access to as much innovation data as possible is invaluable to the Momentis team, and it allows the company to “strategically calculate steps when trying to understand where to expand innovation efforts and what to be wary of.”

Before PatSnap, Rozhenko relied on various other patent intelligence solutions, as well as open-source tools such as Google patents. He found that with other platforms, “you have to work a lot harder in order to get the results you need, even though they may have access to the same information, it is much more difficult and time consuming to obtain.”

Better Business Decisions

The reports provided in PatSnap Insights are also critical to Momentis’ workflow. Being visual in nature, Rozhenko can easily display and explain the likely value of a patent portfolio to upper management. He also uses the reports from PatSnap to maintain an understanding of the competitive landscape, which informs strategic business decisions.

The landscape tool allows Rozhenko to get a clearer visual understanding of the IP saturation in various fields and infer business insights about Momentis, as well as its competitors.

With PatSnap, Rozhenko can extract the insights he needs — especially with the smart image tool. “It enables you to quickly understand which numbers match to the respective descriptions in an invention and you can quickly understand how it works.”

Most importantly, PatSnap helps Rozhenko perform his job quicker and reduces errors. “Having access to the information I need, quickly and confidently, enables me to spend more time on my other work – instead of spending so much time on searching and prosecution drafting.”

Some of the key features enabling Momentis include:

• Insights. The various reports provided by PatSnap Insights module provide many of the analytics needed by the Momentis team, from competitive analysis to patent/portfolio valuations, and more.
• Semantic Search. When engineers have an idea for an invention, “semantic search enables quick analysis of the space to understand where there may be adjacent technologies and if they have freedom to operate.”
• Smart Image. Momentis uses the Smart Image tool the most. “It enables us to quickly see how a disclosed invention may function, and easily understand what parts of an invention are being referred to within the description.”

Most impressive to the Momentis team is PatSnap’s all-encompassing data. “PatSnap truly provides more than just a patent analysis tool.”

Additionally, Rozhenko is a big fan of PatSnap’s customer service. “I’ve never received better customer service — ever — from any software company. So, when I recommend PatSnap to colleagues, I note, ‘not only is it a great platform that is very convenient to use due to the sleek design, but they also have the best customer service.’”

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Novatech International NV is a brand manufacturer of adhesives, sealants and surface treatment offering solutions that enable technical professionals to perform their job in a better, faster, safer, and easier way. Since 1978 they have been specializing in the challenges faced in construction, industry, and transportation . Their brand portfolio includes, Novatio, Tec7, Bike7, and Green7. Notably, TEC7 is a single polymer adhesive & sealant which replaced multiple sealants and adhesives, with just one product. It created the most important growth for Novatech and opened the way to other solutions according to the same vision: smart, simple solutions with many applications. Meanwhile, TEC7 is still the leader in their home market in terms of assembly and sealants for the construction market after 25 years.

Maximizing Innovation Efficiencies

Gunther Dreezen, Innovation Director at Novatech, has over 20 years working in R&D developing formulated adhesives, sealants, inks and coating technologies for different industries and applications. He says, “having data surrounding technology and competitive intelligence is very important in our innovation processes, and we use this information to maximize our innovation efficiency.”

A key part of the Novatech innovation team’s role is keeping pace with the innovation activity of their competitors as well as major raw material suppliers in the market and trending technologies. Innovation insights play a critical role with the Novatech R&D team enabling them to understand market trends and generate innovative ideas for products, as well as guidance on existing and novel approaches.

Creation and Expansion of IP

In an industry that depends strongly on different certification processes, and further is densely packed with literature and patent data, it is important the Novatech team has access to accurate global data. Prior to using PatSnap, the Novatech innovation team had used other patent intelligence platforms and open-source software but found that “the data difficult to manage and non-user-friendly, making patent searching much more complicated.”  

To address these challenges, Novatech turned to PatSnap. With PatSnap, “we are sure we have the best professional innovation tool and support available.” This has helped the Novatech team with the creation and expansion of the IP in their business, which is strategically very important. The goal for Novatech is to “increase innovation efficiency and idea creation, while ensuring FTO, through actionable insights.”

One of the main ways Novatech uses PatSnap is to assess freedom to operate (FTO) before commercializing new products, and supporting their R&D team to allow them to answer questions such as:

• What are our competitors working on?
• What has already been done in this space based on patent literature?
• What can we do to simplify or improve a product?

According to Dreezen, when compared with other tools out there, “PatSnap is much easier to use, more complete, and increases innovation efficiencies.” This has allowed Novatech to bring their IP work in-house, further allowing their R&D team to be well-prepared before contacting external patent attorneys, saving them time and money.

Making Patent Searching Easy

Since Novatech transitioned to using PatSnap, the Novatech innovation team can act faster and with more confidence when it comes to their R&D and IP initiatives. Some of the key features helping them are:

• The intuitive interface. PatSnap’s interface makes patent searching extremely easy, “to get the basics you really don’t need any training – anyone can jump right in and figure out how to use it.”
• Having non-native language patents translated into English is especially useful, “it gives us a good feel of what the patents are saying, helping us better understand what is being patented in other countries.”
• Professional services. Utilizing PatSnap’s professional services for an FTO report “was very thorough, they took the time to understand what we needed and provided us with the quality analysis we needed, without having to dedicate the man hours.”

When asked, Dreezen states overall the support from the PatSnap team has been most impressive. “The customer support is excellent, they truly take the time to understand what we do and need, ensuring we get the most value out of the tool.” What stands out is the people at PatSnap, “you don’t often find this with other services, you can really tell there are people behind Patsnap.”

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Bioceres is a fully integrated provider of crop productivity technologies, designed to enable the transition of agriculture towards carbon neutrality . They have a unique biotech platform with high-impact, patented technologies for seeds and microbial ag-inputs, as well as next-generation crop nutrition and protection solutions. Bioceres was the first company to achieve drought-tolerant soybean and wheat crops, with more than700 trademarks and applications. Bioceres is a global company with agricultural inputs marketed across over 30 countries, mainly in Argentina, Brazil, the United States, Europe, and South Africa.

Bioceres’ pipeline focuses mainly on developing biological products to improve crop performance while reducing environmental impact, including the carbon footprint of agricultural activities. The company discovers, develops, and commercializes biotech traits, bio-fungicides, bio-stimulants, inoculants, soybean, and wheat seed varieties. Its products also improve the efficiency of adjuvants and micro-beaded fertilizers, by combining these with biological inputs.

Innovation Intelligence

Gloria Montaron, Director, and Chief Intellectual Property Officer at Bioceres Group, manages their growing IP portfolio, she also analyzes the portfolios of potential acquisition targets . Bioceres maintains a very robust patent portfolio, with over 300 patents issued or pending. Montaron works to monitor the competitive landscape, maintain the company’s portfolio, analyze acquisition targets, and analyze freedom to operate for new projects.

Montaron leverages PatSnap’s breadth of data and analytics to monitor the portfolios and maintain a holistic view of the industry. Prior to using PatSnap, Bioceres used open-source software and relied heavily on external counsel. The processes were tedious and expensive. Plus, the team wasn’t confident in the accuracy of the external searches. To address these challenges, they turned to PatSnap. Since transitioning, Montaron and her team have brought most of their IP work in house.

We reduced budget by around 300% and are also more confident in our research.

Power is Information

Montaron says, “power is information,” and that is exactly what PatSnap offers. In particular, the insights tool “provides a lot of information in a very easy to digest and understand form.” It allows their team to have meaningful, well-informed discussions while analyzing potential acquisition targets and enables them to “better negotiate.” They have a holistic view of a target company and its portfolio, as well as its valuations, enabling them to accurately dissect what it may be worth when considering acquisitions.

Bioceres also uses PatSnap in their technology department when working on new products. Montaron encourages the team to leverage PatSnap insights and put together reports on different technology spaces. Equipped with the AI-powered analytics, the team gains a deeper understanding of the technology space, as well as freedom to operate. Plus, they can confidently answer questions such as:

• Where do we sit in the market?
• Where do our competitors sit?

Clearer More Comprehensive Picture

Since transitioning to PatSnap, Montaron has a clearer, more comprehensive picture of the crop solutions industry, including the patents and companies that are, and will be, transforming the industry. Some of the key features that help Montaron obtain this picture are:

• Valuations. The patent valuations are especially useful because, “they allow us to perform data-driven negotiations when acquiring a company and its portfolio.”
• Landscapes. Landscapes are powerful and enable Bioceres to “ perform precise searches on a technology.”
• Insights. The insights module is “amazing for connecting technology and IP with our business and competitive strategies.”

Montaron encourages others to try PatSnap’s user-friendly interface. She describes PatSnap as a “facilitator.”

“It really facilitates a way for you to easily work with intellectual property.” With PatSnap, the Bioceres team works confidently and efficiently.

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The global appetite for seafood is increasing dramatically. Aquaculture is the fastest-growing food production sector , and it’s also one undergoing significant innovation, particularly to meet the uptick in demand. Finding environmentally efficient, sustainable alternatives to combat food insecurity has become increasingly important.

Hatch Blue is an aquaculture innovation company founded in 2017. Its mission is to catalyze farmed and alternative seafood innovation through responsible investment, expertise, and insights. The company hopes to achieve the smallest possible footprint of farmed and alternative seafood, for the benefit of the oceans, terrestrial ecosystems, and future generations. In its first two years of operation, Hatch Blue invested in more than 30 companies, ran three successful cohorts, raised its first $8M USD fund and established offices in Hawaii, Norway, and Singapore. The company operates on three main business units: an accelerator program, an investment fund, and providing consultancy and advisory services. From helping new startups develop business plans to investing into the sector to governments trying to develop this ecosystem, as well as large companies working to commercialize their products, Hatch Blue works with all aspects of aquaculture innovation.

Swimming with Bigger Sharks

Dr. Claude Kaplan is the IP Commercialization Expert at Hatch Blue. With over 20 years of IP experience, he uses his expertise to support Hatch and its portfolio of companies through the provision of training and mentoring on all aspects of intellectual property, IP commercialization strategies, competitor and market intelligence, FTO , as well as performing due diligence on potential investments.

Having access to quality data about innovation, technology, and intellectual property is a critical component of Claude’s role. He often finds himself explaining why IP is the most important part of a business’s bottom line. “It’s the only thing that protects you, because when you’re a startup working in innovation, inevitably you’re swimming with a lot bigger sharks.” He explains what sets you apart is when you can do something better, quicker, and cheaper than your competitors— all while maintaining your competitive advantage by protecting your IP. As such, having the data to understand where a company’s IP fits within the landscape, among what competitors are doing, is critical.

Prior to using PatSnap, Hatch Blue made use of open sources databases (public databases), but quickly realized they lacked the “richness” Claude was looking for. They could use them to search and identify patents, but when it came to analyzing trends or finding associated technologies, they fell short. As such, they turned to PatSnap to provide their team with a more informed and detailed picture of the patent landscape.

Commercial Advantage of IP

When looking to invest in a company, IP is critical, as are the details of what that IP actually means to the company’s commercial objectives. According to Claude, saying, “I have a patent” is a meaningless statement. “What has meaning is understanding specifically what that patent allows you to do, and more importantly what it stops your competitors from doing.” For this type of due diligence, Claude uses PatSnap’s scope of data to analyze the commercial advantage of having certain patents, as well as where potential competitors may sit. Secondarily, for bigger projects, Claude looks at the patent landscapes. This enables him to get an understanding of key players, what they’re patenting, in what countries, and who is citing who, allowing him to consult or advise a client on the space they are in, or potentially want to move into, as well as the focus or trajectory of their competitors.

Improved Productivity

Since transitioning to PatSnap, Hatch Blue noticed an uptick in productivity. Claude notes, “We’ve experienced approximately a 30 to 40% increase in the speed of our IP searches. It’s so much quicker with PatSnap! The improved productivity is a huge value-add for our clients. For the same fee, they are getting so much more insight.” Some of the key features contributing to this increase include:

• PatSnap’s user Interface. The user interface of PatSnap’s software is “so simple and intuitive, it really is very easy to navigate, and setting up and filtering a search is nearly effortless.”
• Email Alerts. After setting up a search, Claude often sets up an alert on top of that dataset. “It’s so simple and quick, making it one of the biggest advantages of PatSnap over previous systems I’ve used.”
• Analytics. This is an essential feature to Claude, “It creates a set of template figures, which are often 75% of what I needed, meaning I don’t have to spend a lot of time creating graphs and figures because it’s already done it for me.”

When asked, Claude believes PatSnap offers Hatch Blue with a competitive advantage because the analytics the company extracts from the software—all in a fraction of the time— provides more value to their clients. Claude encourages others to test out and experience the PatSnap user interface. “Test it out! Compare it to what you use now and see how effortless it really is. “

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UNICO is a technology development and consulting firm founded in 2017. The company works with its customers to aid in all aspects of technological innovation, “from A to Z.” Starting with defining business innovation needs, continuing with ideation, developing a functional prototype, and eventually commercialization, UNICO uses its interdisciplinary research network, in-depth knowledge of the patent landscape, and its own powerful AI platform to deliver technological innovations based on ground-breaking science. During the first two years of operation, UNICO helped bridge contracts between various organizations worth approximately 30 million Czech crowns ($1.2M USD).

UNICO is built upon three pillars:

1. Its EXPERTS.ai platform: through various algorithms the company’s database pulls together science and academic experts, seamlessly connecting the private sector with the university environment.

2. Research and consulting: UNICO guides companies to find and develop the best tech solution possible.

3. Creating startups and connecting them with investors: the company facilitates the transformation of academic developments into successful spinout companies.

UNICO takes great pride in helping customers find the right technologies for their innovation goals as well as understand the associated risks. As such, conducting intellectual property due diligence and analysis and using robust data in all parts of UNICO’s innovation process is a key component of the company’s business model. In order to understand the risks associated with pursuing or developing a technology in a specific market, as well as owning IP in said market, Vojtech Nosek, CEO and Co-founder of UNICO, turned to PatSnap.

Dynamic and Digestible Data

Nosek explains, “Having access to information about a company’s innovation and technology is very important. As we consult with our customers, we do have some previous know-how and experience, but having an evidence-based approach with the data to support what we’re saying is very important.” Especially important to the UNICO team is having access to data that is dynamic. “Innovation is about change, but it is also constantly changing. Having updated, dynamic data is very important to us when it comes to analyzing a customer’s technology or IP. PatSnap’s unrivaled breadth of data and weekly updates, have been the perfect partner in helping us tackle this.” PatSnap transformed patent data, which is historically very complicated, and made it easily accessible and digestible, further enabling innovation professionals to excel in their work.

Searching Capabilities

As part of its innovation services, UNICO works with companies looking to acquire technology from other countries. Depending on the technology being acquired, there can be upwards of hundreds of patents they must review and filter through. Using PatSnap, this process is much more efficient – the team can filter and sort through documents based on country, legal status, and more, and then analyze the information to extract meaningful insights — saving a lot of time in the long run. The standardization of PatSnap’s data makes evaluating patent data and analyzing a company’s portfolio a much simpler process. “When we are working with global companies there can very often be different spellings and iterations of a company name. Using PatSnap’s standardized assignee we can be sure we are getting the complete global picture of a company’s innovation profile.”

Many of UNICO’s projects last for months. As such, being well-informed about any changes to the patent landscape is of the utmost importance, as it helps the company decide when to pivot as needed. According to Nosek, workspaces are especially very useful with longer projects. “What’s really valuable is that our project folders are automatically updated, so anytime something changes, such as a new patent being filed, we are notified immediately by email.”

Innovation Efficiencies

Since transitioning to using PatSnap, the UNICO team noticed an uptick in efficiency. “PatSnap’s user-friendly interface helped us transform our internal patent analyses to being upwards of 50% more efficient.” Some of the key features that aided in this transformation include:

– PatSnap Workspaces: “Our project folders are automatically updated, so anytime something changes, such as a new patent being filed, we are notified immediately by email.”

– The standardization of patent assignees: “There can very often be different spellings and iterations of a company name. Using PatSnap’s standardized assignee we can be sure we are getting the complete global picture of a company’s innovation profile.”

– PatSnap’s breadth of consistently updated data: Leveraging updated, global information empowers the UNICO team to have “an evidence-based approach with the data to support [it].”

The UNICO team did use other innovation intelligence tools in the past, but they found that “many other tools are not as user friendly. We would spend hours on the computer trying to conduct our research, ensuring we were covering everything – but as a result our processes were much less structured.” After transitioning to PatSnap, the team said the PatSnap platform can be described in one word, “time-saver.”

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“As technology grows at an unprecedented pace, intellectual property law, business, technology, and science are becoming inseparable.“ – Michael Martensen, Founder & IP Attorney, Martensen IP

Martensen IP is an intellectual property law firm with a deep understanding of IP tools, the business of IP, and the tech market itself. The company is comprised of a team of patent attorneys with decades of experience in the field. Together, they have drafted and prosecuted hundreds of patent applications. They provide IP services, primarily in intellectual property, including the identification of patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets , to small or emerging companies, all the way up to multibillion dollar corporations.

Investing in Your Future

Michael Martensen, the founder of Martensen IP has 20 years of IP experience, and he believes, “Among the four pillars of intellectual property, patents are the king. They are arguably the most difficult to get, and the most valuable to have.” Patents can offer insights into the industry, market, and ongoing research and development.

Prior to using PatSnap, Martensen used other patent intelligence tools, outsourcing, and leveraging open-source software. However, in order to convey to clients’ what patents are all about, Martensen IP started searching for a simplified, user-friendly, data-driven tool. They landed on PatSnap. “PatSnap not only provides both the data and graphical renditions for us as patent savvy experts, but also for our non-expert clients. It takes the language and complexity of patents and turns it into a very digestible representation, which has been incredibly helpful with client uptake and demonstrations.”

Landscapes & Landmines

When working within the field of innovation, field of innovation, Martensen explains it’s extremely important to have access to quality data , especially as an IP professional. “With respect to priority searches or freedom to operate analysis where we are focused on a defensive mindset, we can show our clients quickly and graphically with a patent landscape approach, ‘this is where you sit, this is where your competitor sits, this is who is surrounding you.’ With the high-quality data PatSnap provides we can confidently provide them with insights into what kind of landmines they may be walking into.” Martensen believes even in instances where a client may not necessarily have patentable subject matter, the insights of the data surrounding their environment, or their trade space can be incredibly valuable. It can show if there are any other major players and highlight potential partners or licensees.

“The input of PatSnap data, in many different senses, has given us the advantage to provide clients very useful information and to engage clients on an ongoing basis. Fundamentally PatSnap makes my day easier — within 10 to 15 minutes I can have a good handle on a technology space, or specific company. It’s unbelievably easy to use. I can easily manipulate my search and look deeper into the data, quickly come up with answers for my clients, and export it to share.” He also noted trying to accomplish the same thing previously [before PatSnap] was almost impossible, giving them a huge advantage in the marketplace.

Valuations

A common challenge Martensen faces with his clients is the question, “Is it worth investing money to file a patent or pursue this area of technology?” His clients are fundamentally aware a patent is a piece of paper that gives them rights, but oftentimes they don’t understand that patent filings are an investment in a company’s future. There are numerous reasons to file for patents to gain protection, but it is not a short-term return on investment. “It’s more likely 5 to 10 years down the line – so the value to them at the end of the day is ‘will this patent be worth anything?’ As such, PatSnap’s valuation tool has been helpful with this – not necessarily to provide a precise value of a client’s patents in the market, but as a comparison of what it could be worth.” Using PatSnap’s valuation, Martensen can showcase the intrinsic value associated with patent filings, demonstrating to their clients there is value with respect to the process.

The A-Team

With 20 years of experience in IP, Martensen says “We have tested all the software and databases out there, and PatSnap, in general, seems to be at least 5 to 10 years ahead of the market. The company is continually innovating, looking at the pain points and needs of their customers, and the rest of the market is trying to catch up. I appreciate the fact that even as they try to catch up, PatSnap is already thinking ahead to the next step. I feel I’m working with the leader in the field, which has been very rewarding to me – I know I’m working with the A team.”

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