With ever-increasing competition and technological advancements, keeping up with the latest trends is not an easy task. Opportunities and threats can come due to technology changes, changes in government policies, socio-demographic changes, and competitive actions by competitors. Timely tracking of competitive research and staying up to date with market trends reduces the chances of unpleasant surprises and helps maintain competitive advantage. It also helps in analyzing competitor’s strategic moves, finding complementary technologies and partners, enhancing technological innovation abilities of a company, and increasing innovation efficiency by contributing to the R&D process.

Competitive data coming from patents gives you a heads-up on what technologies are emerging, what patents are protecting competing products, which direction the technology trends are headed or who are new entrants with disruptive technologies, all of which help you refine your innovation and IP strategies. Companies with existing investments into an IP portfolio and with existing products that benefit from it must constantly scan the IP landscape to defend their turf and detect incoming threats early on. Designing and implementing the right IP-driven early-warning system (workflow) is critical towards meeting this objective.