Up-to-date competitive intelligence is essential for strategic decision making around R&D, patenting, and marketing. These decisions should be based on data, not on assumptions or intuition. However, the sheer amount of information around your competitors’ intellectual property—which is incredibly valuable to your organization’s decision makers—can be difficult to gain insight from without the right tools. AI-powered visualizations uncover insights and trends that may otherwise be difficult to detect. Highly visual competitor mapping allows the C-suite to understand and act strategically within complex landscapes.
InnovationQ Plus® includes powerful visualization tools for competitive landscape mapping. Our AI engine is uniquely suited to uncover and display insights directly from your competitors’ intellectual property. Use specific timeframes, concept modifiers, companies, and countries for a comprehensive competitive landscape analysis!
Indentify Innovation in Your Technical Area
Competitive landscape mapping requires boundaries. One way to narrow the scope of your analysis is to first review the technical landscape around your core competencies. Using highly-visual semantic mapping, you can see which areas specific companies are most active in, as well as if any of your competitors’ patents appear to overlap your own—potentially indicating infringement. Note any new or non-traditional competitors by identifying companies with inventions semantically similar to your own intellectual property.
Also review the white spaces within the landscape, or areas where only one or two competitors are patenting. This may indicate untapped potential within the industry where you may be able to be first to market and claim a competitive advantage.
Look at Competitors’ Intellectual Property
You’re well aware of who your primary competitors are. However, reviewing the technical landscape may have brought additional organizations innovating in your space to your attention. You may also discover that your competitors have licensed or sold their technology to another entity or are innovating in a field outside your own. Now, you can look at both your direct competitors’ IP activities, as well as those of secondary and tertiary competitors. This may be a good time to consider what innovations your aspirational competitors are publishing as well.
The Corporate Tree function within InnovationQ Plus, when paired with name normalization, allows you to include more of your competitor’s IP in your analysis by including acquisitions, subsidiaries, and close variations of the company’s name. This thorough look can give you a clearer idea of how and where your competitors are securing IP rights, and how their strategies are changing over time. How do their patents and other IP allow them to position themselves within your industry?
Uncover Trends By Country or Region
Visualizing activity in your industry, especially the actions of your closest competitors, by country can give you valuable insight into what comes next. In a global economy impacted by a pandemic and geopolitical unrest, companies must carefully consider where they’re patenting. Recognizing trends over time and across regions can help you navigate international markets. This competitive landscape mapping can also identify foreign companies who are publishing IP similar to your own in your own country.