There are certain key features that every patent analysis tools must possess to deliver holistic results for any Intellectual Property and Data Management firm. In the previous blog post we covered certain features like patent text mining function, analytical capabilities and search functionality which play a crucial role in providing holistic delivery and intelligence information around patents. Apart from these there are certain other add-on features which are necessary to build an efficient Patent analysis tool.
1) Charting and visualization:
The power to convert patent analysis data into charts and powerful graphics is a must have feature for any patent analysis tool. It comes really handy to have a visual representation of data to export them into reports and presentations. The visuals are usually in the form of pie chart and bar graphs showing the change in patent trends and dominance of a particular segment over the other. A good visualization and reporting component helps convey the insight easily without any need for explanation. Powerful visuals necessitate actions from the information consumers’ typically senior management and result in swift decision making. VIZmap is a visualization module available with Patent iNSIGHTS Pro for users who seek advance visualization above charts and graphs for semantic exploration within large sets of patent data.
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2) Reporting:
One of the major needs of any organization will be generating reports of various types to suit the need of a particular department. Support for a wide range of flexible report types is useful with output format as word or excel so that the user can modify the report as per needs after it has been generated.
If we take an example of 3D printing , Patent iNSIGHTS Pro generated reports based on research activities around the world for 3D printing. The focus was on generating key statistics about the companies leading in the domain. We used the the Assignee 360 report option to filter the top companies and generate the report. The generated report is then exported to excel and for further customization or editing.
3) User Interface and ease of usage:
There is always a demarcation between patent analysis tools armed with numerous features and one which is simple to use for an average employee. This becomes one more demarcating feature for opting for a patent analysis tool for your organization. A good solution to this would be: opt for a tool which has an easy to use interface. A very easy to use interface may not always give you that flexibility and range of customization while an extremely complex interface may defeat the purpose and make the process of analyzing data more tedious rather than easier. Look out for an interface which gives you both ease of use along with flexibility of options.
These are the most sought after qualities that an Intellectual Property and Data management organization should look for while opting for a patent analysis tool . Apart from the above mentioned features, organizations should also look for capabilities like data export, associating custom fields with patent data, a rating or scoring system for measuring performance and quality of data being dealt with.