Introduction:
Contact lens is considered as a medical device that is worn to correct vision. They are also used for cosmetic and therapeutic purposes. When compared with spectacles, contact lenses typically provide better peripheral vision and do not collect moisture such as rain, snow, condensation or sweat.
Contact lenses can be classified in many different ways. They are usually categorized by their primary function, material, and wear schedule. Typically soft contact lens is mass produced, while rigid lenses are custom made to extract specifications for specific individual patients.
One of the important factors that come into consideration when it comes to contact lenses is the kind of material that has been used to produce the lens. Materials have varied through time. In the older times the materials that were used that did not allow much oxygen to reach the eye causing dryness. However technology has changed over the years and so has the availability of products
PatSeer Strategy:
PatSeer creates a centralized work environment for the Intellectual Property and Data Management team to manage and work on patent data projects. Carry out analysis and deliver insights. In the given case of contact lenses, PatSeer created the query as shown in the image below to create the patent set.
[Figure 1]
TAC: Title, Description, Claims
IC: International class
CPC: Cooperative patent classification
The query was directed to search through the title, abstract and claims with one publication per family and the generated report is exported to Patent Insights Pro for further analysis.
In the given instant result set of 2470 patents were import to the software
IP analysis:
The publication trend for contact lenses in the past couple of years is discussed below.
Contact lens publications started from the year 1994, however the real surge in activities happened in the last 10 years. The recent spikes in the number of patent filings clearly show that this technology is likely to show further innovation in the near future.
[Figure 2]
How this was done
Once the patents are populated in patent insights pro, the assignee clean up tools were used to normalize the names. The dashboard tool with Patent Insights Pro was used to find 20 assignee within the given patent set. A visual graph was created based on the results of the top assignee and made available for further analysis
Top Companies:
[Figure 3]
How this was done
Once the patents are populated in patent insights pro, the assignee clean up tools were used to normalize the names. The dashboard tool with Patent Insights Pro was used to find 20 assignee within the given patent set. A visual graph was created based on the results of the top assignee and made available for further analysis
Company activities across contact lens:
The chart below shows research activities of companies across different type of contact lens. Results showed that Bausch and Lomb have most number of records in Rigid Glass Permeable type of lens while Novartis leads in publication for Color Contact Lens.
[Figure 4]
How the results were obtained:
Manual research was done to identify the various types of contact lens materials, then by using a combination of semantic analysis tools such as clustering tools available in Patent Insights Pro to categorize them under broad headings. A co occurrence matrix was generated using the co occurrence analyzer map to map the different assignee. This matrix is then filtered for the top 15 assignee and was converted into column charts using the software available within Patent iNSIGHTS Pro.
Activities across contact lens material:
The chart below shows research activities of companies across different type of material used for manufacturing contact lens. It is quite evident from the chart shown below that Bausch and Lomb is the only company that is using Flurosillicone Acrylate as a material for the contact lens.
[Figure 5]
Landscape technologies used for different contact lenses:
The contour map given below represents different contact lens and their use with respect to complete patent portfolio. Clusters for Myopia and Hyperopic appear far away from each other as per definition. The different colour for the nodes represents different companies.
[Figure 6]
Contact Lens: Country wise Research Trends
US : Publication Trends
The chart below shows the publication trends exclusively for the firms based out of United States. For achieving this result US was selected as the priority country from the data filter option within co occurrence analyzer. This creates a matrix for the required companies which can then be clustered into column charts using the software available for this purpose.
[Figure 7]
This chart below shows the patent filing trends of United States. It is clear from the chart given below that Coopervision is actively filing patents since the year 2000.
[Figure 8]
Summary:
The given report categorized and graphically analyzed research trends around contact lens. It talked about the process involved and its applications from various perspectives and high lights the key companies involved.
The entire report is available for download here: Technology Insight Report