Leader in Performance Footware
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.”
