Having invested heavily ($500 million) in the Michigan based e-mobility startup, Rivian, and announcing a partnership with Volkswagen to investigate possible collaboration in developing electric vehicles (EVs), Ford is shaping up to be a formidable player in the already fast-growing EV market. It was also reported recently that Lincoln, which is Ford’s luxury car brand, is already developing a new fully electric vehicle in partnership with Rivian set to be released some time in 2022. Ford is sending clear signals to the market that they are ready to tackle the changes that are coming to the automotive industry in the form of digitalization. With the increased adoption of digital technologies by the auto industry set to change the way we drive, Ford is rapidly innovating to come up with safer, cleaner and cheaper modes of transport.

In November 2019, EconSight - a Swiss based consulting and research company, conducted a study of the Top 100 Digital Innovators. This ranking was created using LexisNexis PatentSight to analyze patents owned by global companies that are leaders in innovation in the digital space. This study revealed that Ford’s consistent efforts in innovation have resulted in their ranking being improved five spots, within a year. They lead the rank hierarchy in autonomous driving, closely followed by the VW group, Toyota Motor and Bosch.

Following the lead of this study, in order to understand more about technology adoption in the automotive industry, we conducted further analyses - comparing Ford’s portfolio to that of Volkswagen, Alphabet and Apple, who are also active in the automotive space. To maintain consistency, the analysis was limited to patents owned by these companies that relate to a combination of classic and digitalization technologies to be used in automobiles.

Patent analytics and valuation – only relevant for large corporations with huge portfolios, sufficient resources, and plenty of time? No! Patent analytics are particularly beneficial for universities’ innovation or patent departments, small- to medium-sized firms, start-ups, and spinoffs.

Last Friday AMS announced that it finally acquired more than 55% of Osram’s shares taking a crucial step in acquiring one of Germany’s most known companies. Osram Licht AG is a multinational lighting manufacturer headquartered in Munich offering innovative and sustainable lighting solutions. AMS AG designs and manufactures advanced sensor solutions. With the acquisition of Osram, AMS wants to create a world class photonics and sensors champion.

Beside these eager plans and AMS growing rapidly in the last years, there is skepticism that AMS, which is merely a third of the size of its takeover target, would not be able to manage a global company like Osram. The size difference between the merging companies is also visible looking at the patent portfolios, which we will be taking a closer look at, in this blogpost.

PatentSight is proud to announce that our patent analytics software is now a patent protected Intellectual Property. In August, 2019, the USPTO officially granted Nils Omland, our founder and CEO, with a patent for the PatentSight Business Intelligence software solution. Back in 2018, when LexisNexis^® acquired PatentSight, this patent was still undergoing review. The granting of this patent makes our SaaS offering, officially, one of its kind.

In September 2016, the German drugs and chemicals group Bayer announced its intention to acquire the multinational Monsanto, known for its Roundup herbicide and GMOs. This merger would produce the world’s most powerful company in the seed and pesticide industry. On 21 March 2018 the EU commission released a Press Release announcing their approval of the acquisition of Monsanto by Bayer. The merger was approved on the conditional divestiture of an extensive remedy package, which addresses the parties' overlaps in seeds, pesticides and digital agriculture. It is for determining such inconspicuous aspects of a merger, like technology overlap, that the EU commission relied on the LexisNexis^® PatentSight^® database and our award-winning Business Intelligence software solution.

From recent news reports it became clear that China accounts for almost 90% of the world’s production and supply of the so-called Rare Earth Elements (REE). These are a group of 17 elements that are not commonly found in the earth's surface. For e.g. Scandium, one of the rare earth elements, is heavily used in manufacturing parts for the aerospace industry. Similarly, these elements have varied and extremely specific uses, for which, at least for the time-being, no viable substitutes can be sourced. We used our excellent patent database and scientifically proven metrics to analyze the current situation around rare earth elements from a patent quality point of view to identify possible opportunities and threats in this business.

“我看到三星手機上有一些不錯的功能，希望 iPhone 也能具備。希望蘋果願意並且能夠使用這些功能，但我不知道三星是否會阻止我們。”

- Steve Wozniak

近年來，智慧手機行業一直以驚人的速度發展，主要製造商每年都會發佈更新和升級的旗艦智慧手機。在這場勢均力敵的技術競賽中，沒有人知道誰會勝出，也沒有人知道哪款產品會成為下一代 iPhone X 或 Galaxy Fold。對於外界而言，這個行業似乎發展快速，但如果瞭解專利的開發情況，便會發現這是 20 多年來逐步發展的結果。近期，三星、蘋果和其他主要廠商紛紛宣告準備推出折疊面板智慧手機，這引發人們對這行業新的猜測。

截至目前，我們掌握資訊並不多，無法判斷這些主要製造商正處於折疊面板技術開發的哪個階段。有人猜測，可折疊智慧手機即將問世，但各方沒有公佈任何進展，也沒有就這項產品的技術方面公開討論。在這種情況下，專利數據分析無疑是最可靠、最具洞察力的方法之一，可以揭開這個技術領域的神秘面紗。

折疊面板技術智慧財產權全景分析：主要行業參與者的關注重點是什麼？(in Simplified Chinese)

“There are good things I see on Samsung phones that I wish were in my iPhone. I wish Apple would use them and could use them, and I don't know if Samsung would stop us."

- Steve Wozniak

The smartphone industry has been evolving at break-neck speed, of late, with key players releasing updated and upgraded flagship smartphones every year. This technology race is close, and there is no telling who will succeed or which product will be the next iPhone X or Galaxy fold. To the rest of the world, this industry and its developments may seem fast but if you look at patent developments, you will realize that this has been happening gradually over more than 2 decades. With the most recent announcements from Samsung, Apple and other major players, all getting ready to launch foldable display smartphones, the industry is abuzz with new speculation.

So far, not much information is available about where these key players are at, in developing this new form of smartphone display technology. There is speculation that foldable smart phones are just around the corner, but no real world development has happened, nor is the technological aspects of the product overtly discussed. In such a situation, patent data analysis is one of the most reliable and insightful methods that can shed light into this otherwise unclear technology space.

“Being at least as good as the leader is a prerequisite to being competitive.”
— Peter Drucker

 Among the various uses for the Patent Asset Index™, one major area of application is in portfolio Benchmarking. Any company operating in the modern day sets goals for themselves, to guide them towards the success that they strive to achieve. Our unparalleled data quality and multi-pronged analysis tools ensure that decision makers get the right information at the right time to make decisions about the right goals to set.