The history of the Patent Map started with IBM in the 1950. The use of the Patent Map was transferred to Japan and found its way as a process for electronic tools in the 1970s. In the 1980s, we saw additions to maps that were rudimentary, and by the 1990s, we had computers drawing the Patent Maps. We have come a long way – or have we? ipCapital Group, Inc. has worked with over 500 clients, and in that time, has learned that Patent Maps need to be in the language and structure of the business; specifically, they need to

1. Be relevant to helping solve business issues
2. Create a direction toward where to invent (white space)
3. Create a direction toward where to commercialize (green space)
4. Keep us out of infringement (dark space)
5. Provide diverse insight to business, technical, legal, and marketing sectors
6. Be useful for determining the IP Strategy
7. Provide insight to all business relationships (value chain)
8. Provide insight into business models
9. Alleviate building large internal skills for searching and analyzing
10. Be specific to the business, cost affective, and easy to update

ipCapital Group, Inc. can help through our

1. IP Landscape facilitation method, to create the Patent Map of a business
2. Highly specialized content experts who can mine the patent literature
3. Method of analyzing the Patent Maps, to answer business questions
4. Method to overlap internal inventions, publications, trade secrets, and marketing information on the same Patent Map
5. Method of applying user-defined fields to the Patent Maps
6. Process that can be applied to companies of all sizes and that can be updated easily
7. IP Strategy Process that leverages the Patent Maps directly
8. Commercialization expertise, to gain economic benefit from what we learn from the Patent Map

Our Patent Maps are not patentability searches, prior art searches, or state-of-the-art searches; rather, our maps are a unique combination of all these best ideas and the highest value business relevant search. ipCapital Group Inc. was the first to introduce the technique of IP Landscape and the mapping of patents and their problems to value chains. We have now gone well beyond this, by mapping many other factors of patents to the Patent Map. For example, we have a proprietary patent strengths analysis tool. The tool combines business model analysis, innovation, product analysis, and licensing analysis.

To obtain more information or discuss your unique challenges please contact us.