IP SOLUTIONS BLOG

Today, we released our latest report, “Research Fronts 2013: 100 Top Ranked Specialties in the Sciences and Social Sciences,” which identifies the 100 nascent areas across multiple fields of science.

Using data from the Thomson Reuters Web of Science, we identified highly active research fronts with a young foundation, or core, literature. These were segmented into 10 broad fields of science and social sciences, with a top 10 listing for each. We factored both the frequency of citations and recency of the core paper’s publication.

Based on our analysis, the top emerging trends in science are:

The full Thomson Reuters Research Fronts 2013 paper can be accessed on ScienceWatch.com, a Thomson Reuters open, web-based resource dedicated to scientific metrics and research performance analysis. To read the full report, click here.

Laura Gaze, Senior Marketing Manager, IP Solutions Innovation, Life Sciences animal sciences, ecology, Innovation, physics, Research, Science

This week, President Obama officially announced the BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies): a program that hopes to develop the invention of new technologies that will help researchers produce real-time pictures of complex neural circuits and visualize the rapid-fire interactions of cells that occur at the speed of thought.

The president addressed the press about the initative in the East Room of the White House, and had this to say about American innovation:

“Ideas are what power our economy. It’s what sets us apart. It’s what America has been all about. We have been a nation of dreamers and risk-takers; people who see what nobody else sees sooner than anybody else sees it.  We do innovation better than anybody else — and that makes our economy stronger. When we invest in the best ideas before anybody else does, our businesses and our workers can make the best products and deliver the best services before anybody else.”

– President Barack Obama, April 2, 2013

Laura Gaze, Senior Marketing Manager, IP Solutions Innovation BRAIN Initiative, Innovation, President Obama, Quote of the Week

Today, we announced that Thomson CompuMark Global Customer Support is now available 24 hours a day, five days a week.  Customers can now access world-class trademark research expertise and service solutions, as well as place an order day or night, to quickly and efficiently expand and protect brands in new markets.

Thomson CompuMark’s Global Customer Support has knowledgeable and highly responsive global representatives in geographic locations around the world, including multiple locations in Europe and the United States. Customer support is available in multiple languages including Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.  Thomson CompuMark also offers guaranteed delivery times and a range of delivery options to meet changing business needs.

To learn more about Thomson CompuMark’s Service the World, click here.

Laura Gaze, Senior Marketing Manager, IP Solutions Innovation customer support, Service the World, solutions, support, Thomson CompuMark

In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, BlackBerry CEO  Thorsten Heins spoke about a number of subjects: the company’s competition with Apple, aspects of design, and the future of the industry. When asked about innovation, he stressed its importance to the future of a consumer technology company:

“The rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don’t innovate at that speed, you can be replaced pretty quickly,”

– Thorsten Heins, chief executive officer, BlackBerry, March 18, 2013

Laura Gaze, Senior Marketing Manager, IP Solutions Innovation apple, BlackBerry, Innovation, Quote of the Week, Smartphones

Today, we are releasing our annual analysis of global patent trends in the fourth-annual State of Innovation report. Utilizing the Thomson Reuters Derwent World Patents Index® (DWPISM) database, the study tracks patent activity (granted patents and published applications, both examined and unexamined) across 12 key technology areas.

Following are the report’s key findings:

• Medical Device Patent Volume Rises: In 2012, medical device technology grew by 15.7 percent, which represents the largest increase in patent activity across all areas.

• Food, Tobacco, & Beverage Fermentation Innovation Subsectors Spike: The Food, Tobacco & Beverage Fermentation areas saw substantial increases. Tobacco-related innovation rose 58 percent, and sugar-related inventions spiked 56 percent.

• Computers Thrive, while Scanners Falter: For the fourth straight year, the area with the largest overall volume was Computers & Peripherals, with 232,549 filings in 2012. Within this area, the Computers subcategory inched ahead 3 percent (to a total of 201,608 filings), however some additional tech took a hit; scanners experienced a sharp 34 percent decline.

To view the full 2012 State of Innovation report, click here.

Laura Gaze, Senior Marketing Manager, IP Solutions Innovation, Patents Innovation, Patents, Research, State of Innovation, strategy

Last week, a report published in the Wall Street Journal named Singapore the most innovative city in Asia.

To read our initial coverage of the report, click here.
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Sue Cullen, Consulting Services Director, IP Solutions: With Singapore’s finite area and high population density, there is yet another driver for innovation, the need for problem-solving. With no land bridge to other countries, and limited in natural resources, Singapore needs to manage the logistics of living, and much of its innovation is oriented in that direction. One example is found in the need for potable water. Singapore has developed technology for turning waste water into potable water, and the government and businesses have helped the population to accept the idea of drinking used water because it is so expensive to import water to sustain the population.  Another area of technical advancement is waste disposal. Large populations create large waste problems. Singapore has attacked this problem on all fronts, trying to reduce the amount of waste, and taking what remains and putting it to good use. The technical aspects of turning waste to energy have been a large focus, and also the technical aspects of using waste as land-fill have been advanced so that Singapore could reliably create more surface area to support its population with added green space and even added room for development.

Another reality of Singapore life is that space for manufacturing is at a premium, so it makes sense that by far the largest innovation segment is in electronics, where talented people can do more despite space limitations. The concept map below shows the innovations (patents and applications) of Singaporean companies since 2000. It is dominated by electronics research, with substantial but smaller contributions in environmental management, shipping technology, medical research, and communications.

It is an old idea, but certainly a true one that necessity is the mother of invention.

click to enlarge

– Thomson Reuters ThemeScape®

Sue Cullen, Ph.D., IP Consulting Director, IP Solutions Innovation industry, Innovation, Patents, Singapore, Technology

This week at SXSW in Austin, the Washington Post’s Emi Kolawole got a tour of Google’s latest technology, which included the shoe that everyone was buzzing about. The company’s talking shoe made a lot of noise at the exhibit (it’s just a prototype at this point), but our quote-of-the-week came when Kolawole and Google’s head of Advertising Arts discussed how he tries to get state-of-the-art tech to marry with corporate culture and resonate with a broad consumer base.

“Our goal is really to figure out how you marry innovations in technology with marketing and advertising. I want to move people from thinking about digital advertising to thinking about advertising and marketing in the digital age.”

– Aman Govil, head of Advertising Arts team, Google, March 9, 2013

Laura Gaze, Senior Marketing Manager, IP Solutions Innovation advertising, Google, Innovation, marketing, Quote of the Week, Technology

According to a new report published in the Wall Street Journal, Singapore is the most innovative city in Asia.

The report, which was conducted by Asian consulting firm Solidiance, gave Singapore high marks for stable politics, low government regulation, and high saturation of global brands.

To view the full list, click here.
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Laura Gaze, Director, IP Solutions: There are many ways to measure innovation and Solidiance is onto something with their focus on evaluating regional politics, cultural and quality of life factors when ranking the top cities.  Other Asia Pacific cities on the list included Sydney, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Auckland, Tokyo and Seoul.

What about mainland China you may ask?  According to the report, Shanghai faired poorly on the list, ranking 14 out of 16 on the list.

Using a completely different methodology, our recent Top 100 Global Innovators program offered a glimpse into regional innovation as well.  However, while the Solidiance analysis is based on socioeconomic and cultural factors to spotlight regional innovation hot spots, our analysis was based purely on quantitative factors to identify the specific organizations that are driving innovation.  Specifically, we developed a methodology based on four principle criteria: patent grant success rate, global reach of the patent portfolio, influence as evidenced by citations and overall patent volume.  On a region-by-region basis, our analysis found that the U.S. was home to 47 of the Top 100 most innovative organizations in the world, followed by Asia, with 32 – comprising 25 from Japan and 7 from South Korea.  Europe came in third place with 21 Top 100 honorees.

The one common bond on both lists was the conspicuous absence of China.  In our case, the reason for China’s absence was a lack of global patent filings.  Whereas China has become the world leader in domestic patent filings, very little of the IP emanating from the country is protected in other regional patent offices around the globe.  That global perspective was a key component of our analysis, and, in many ways, a quantitative representation of the political and cultural factors Solidiance is measuring with their analysis.

At the end of the day, these are two very different analyses with very different goals, but both shed some compelling light on the current culture of innovation in the Asia Pacific region.

Laura Gaze, Senior Marketing Manager, IP Solutions Innovation citations, Innovation, Patents, Singapore

“The growth of filings from European businesses is a clear indication that industry here has opted to innovate its way out of the economic crisis. The patent filings of today are shaping the innovations of tomorrow. These results confirm that Europe is not only a prime location for R&D activities but also valued as a stronghold of innovation by both technology generating and exporting companies.”

– Benoit Battistelli, president, European Patent Office

Laura Gaze, Senior Marketing Manager, IP Solutions Innovation Benoit Battistelli, EPO, Patents, quote, Quote of the Week

This week, Bloomberg Businessweek’s Charles Kenny penned the article “How Patent Laws are Stifling American Growth.”

Kenney argues that existing patent law slows innovation, and that within the United States, no significant relationship exists between patenting activity and either output per worker or overall productivity.”

Kenney states:

“[...]Proliferation of patents has had a chilling effect on would be innovators because they’re too busy worrying about licensing and legal action from patent trolls.”

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Adam Jaffe, Director of IP Management Consulting Services, IP Solutions: In order to prevent the dilution of our patent standards and end “intellectual monopolies,” Mr. Kenney is arguing for Congress to pass stronger intellectual property laws.  But is that what’s necessary?  Perhaps higher examination standards are needed? Or possibly a different way the courts interpret the laws?

The truth lies somewhere in between. There is a constant balance between the need of innovators to be secure in their investment of time in their inventions and the need of our society and economy to take advantage of these innovations.  While the patent system may not be perfect, granting a limited monopoly in exchange for the disclosure of technology seems to encourage the US inventors to innovate.

It is also not clear why we would expect output per worker or overall productivity to be an aim of our intellectual property system.  If we do, we would in fact have to drastically modify US IP law to favor inventions that achieve these aims.

admin Innovation Innpvation, Laws, Legislation, Patents