Patent Map

What's Patent Map? 

A patent map (as follows) is a useful graphical model of patent visualization. This practice enables companies to identify the patents in a particular technology space, verify the characteristics of these patents, and identify the relationships among them, to see whether there are any zones of patent infringement. Patent mapping is also referred to as patent landscaping.

Why Patent Map exists? 

Patent map which is a way to analyze the patent literatures becomes more and more popular for the enterprise patent workers.

A patent is a kind of exclusive rights of an inventor granted in accordance with law. Patent is a document issued by a national government granting an inventor exclusive rights to an invention for a limited time. Patents are important information sources of science and technology. Every country attaches great importance to patent literature. The patent literatures contain a large number of economic, technological and legal information, and have become an important information source for high-tech enterprises.

How Important Patent Map is 

Patent Map is an important tool in collecting, settling, utilizing the information of patent. Patent Map is not fully used nowadays because the function has not been realized by most of enterprises. We hope that more and more enterprises could utilize Patent Map as a sharp weapon in technical competition. It is revealed by WIPO that over 90% of all the world s inventions are found in patent documents. Additionally, it is also disclosed by EPO that "patents reveal solutions to technical problems, and they represent an inexhaustible source of information: more than 80% of man s technical knowledge is described in patent literature." But patents are often straitjacketed as legal documents that aim to cloak a technology in the name of market interests rather than project it. Patent map provides technology formation in the relevant fields, and statistical analysis method. Analyzing the chart can academic information and make it available to company strategy. Patent map can be used for indicating the direction of enterprise's development. What is more, the technical analysis technology, especially the distribution of competitors can be used to monitor the patent technology distribution, which will enable enterprises to get the knowledge of competitors. Enterprises will not only use patent map for intellectual property management, but also apply to the management of market and technological innovations.