We
can see companies that once led the market often neglect the potential of new
technologies and fell behind in the marketplace. Nokia once held an
overwhelming advantage in the mobile phone sector with a market share of over
40%, but failed to keep up with new technological changes and fell behind in
the market. It's not just Nokia. Since then, companies have begun to react
sensitively to the trend of technological change, and it has been an
opportunity to significantly increase R&D costs.
As
more money invested in R&D, technology management for R&D products has
also become more important. Companies use patents that contain technology
information to manage technology. The patent was chosen not only because it
contains technological information, but also it can be said as objective
information because it is examined by the patent office. This time, we will
look at strategic technology management using patent information.
Competitor
monitoring and technology assessment
A
company's patent activity can be seen as an indication of what technology a
company is interested in. So, by following the information, you can predict the
final goal of the company. And based on the value of patents, you can see the
technology share that tells the company's competitive position, and through the
share, you can see the technology they have in the market. Therefore, if a
company's technology share drops significantly, it means that their technology
is at stake, so the R&D strategy needs to be modified.
The
patent value can be evaluated in the following way.
(1)
Ratio of granted of filed patents
(2)
International scope
(3)
Technical scope
(4)
Citation frequency
This
criterion is aligned with a commercial point of view, that is, the company's
sales and profits are related to the value of the patent.
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| ▲ clipartkorea.co.kr |
Patent
portfolios
One
of the most important decisions to be made in technology management is the
investment of R&D resources; senior management must decide how much of the
R&D resources will be spent on which type of technology. To make this
decision-making process easier, we start using technology portfolio. Portfolios
have the advantage of structuring and visualizing complex problems while
focusing on most relevant decision-making criteria. However, it was created
based on the subjective evaluation of the managers, and information was
insufficient. Patent information has been added to the portfolio to compensate
for this problem. The patent portfolio was also important when making decisions
inside the company, but it can also be used when reviewing M&As or licenses
due to its high applicability in competitor analysis.
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Identification and assessment of M&A options
The
reason for M&A is to gain access to technological knowledge, which is of
long-term strategic interest to the company.
Due to the risk of R&D and limited resources in the high-tech field,
there is a limit to developing technology by the organization itself. To
compensate for this limitation, M&A is used to secure a continuous
competitive advantage of technology. An important success factor for
technology-driven M&As are the selection of the most appropriate M&A
target and the target’s subsequent into the organization is to proceed with
M&A with the most appropriate target. If patent information is required
when selecting the target, the selection decision will be more reliable.
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Human resource management
Patent
information can also determine how good an inventor is. The inventor of the
patented technology is also evaluated in accordance with the patent evaluation.
The inventor portfolio distinguishes four types of inventors in accordance with
patent activities and quality. Most inventors are low performers with low
quality and patent activities. Key inventors with high patent activity and high
quality account for 6.9% of the total inventors. However, it is said that key
inventors' patenting output may achieve a maximum of 80%. Therefore, the
company must identify key inventors in advance and make continuous efforts to
continuously produce patents.
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| ▲ Four types of inventor |
This post is excerpted from "Patent Information for strategic technology management" by Holger Ernst
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