Bulletproof Your IP Strategy Through Business Analytics – Introduction

Today there is a new and growing trend in business which relies on analytics to drive critical decisions and to be distinct from the competition. Like most disciplines in which success can be objectively measured, business is a blend of art and science.

In his book Sun Tzu and the Art of Business � Six Strategic Principles for Managers, Mark McNeilly writes “Like Sun Tzu’s Age of the Warring States, today’s business world is one of continual conflict between companies as they strive for survival and success across the globe. Faced with scarce and expensive resources and an ever-changing environment, competitors seek even the slightest advantage.”

The art of business can’t be overlooked, but neither can the science of making strategic decisions based on analytic data. Data-driven decisions can help to ensure that your decisions are sound and are aligned with your business strategy, which should also be based on keen market analysis.

Analytic data can provide critical insights into market trends, your competition and even your intellectual property management practice, which now typically governs two thirds of a company’s asset value. Because your IP composes so much of your company’s asset value, managing it using analytics is critical to the larger effort of patent protection.

The theory has been in existence for some time but is rarely fully exploited, which � in the current economy in particular � is a mistake given the fact that it is increasingly more challenging to successfully compete. Analytics, particularly those related to IP, are a necessary variable in the equation of business planning and strategy. Understanding your IP in the context of market trends and your competition is critical in directing research and development (R&D), marketing and sales.

The following sections describe not only what we mean by analytics in a more detailed way, but also the types of analytics you should be applying and why IP analytics are so critical to your business.

Simply put, analytics is the science of analysis, or more specifically in this case, patent analysis. When people mention analytics they are often referring to data sets that assist them in making reasoned decisions, but the thing that makes these data sets useful is how they are derived and how they are applied.

Business intelligence is essentially an understanding of the business’s commercial context through the use of technology, applications and best practices. The term dates back to a 1958 article in which IBM researcher Hans Peter Luhn defined it as “the ability to apprehend the interrelationships of presented facts in such a way as to guide action towards a desired goal.

The system he described was driven by three simple questions:

* What is known?

* Who knows what?

* Who needs to know?