Case Studies.
Ping An Technology, the core technology arm of insurance, banking, and financial services conglomerate Ping An Group, made a remarkable debut in WIPO’s 2019 top PCT filer list with 1,691 patent applications pushed through the international route – five times more than in 2018. The Chinese heavyweight has clear ambitions of becoming a “technology-plus-finance” company within the next decade, as outlined by the firm’s co-CEO Jessica Tan in an interview with Bloomberg.
Read MoreSanofi announced a $3.4 billion deal to purchase US biotech company Principia Biopharma. It’s the third-largest pharmaceutical acquisition of 2020 and the company’s second big ticket deal since Paul Hudson joined as CEO in September 2019. The former Novartis executive has made his priorities at Sanofi clear: cut costs and invest in innovative - and lucrative - medicines.
Read MoreSupersonic passenger transport came to a close with the official retirement of the Concorde 15 years ago, but with recent advancements in composite structures, reduction of engines noise levels, and increased fuel efficiency, achieving a flight time of just 3 hours and 15 minutes between New York and London should soon be possible once again.
Read MoreShopify, known as Canada’s tech darling, is riding a wave of success. The company’s latest quarterly
earnings revealed sales growth of 47% to $505.2 million. Its stock has risen over 70% since November
and is up by more than 190% since the beginning of 2019. This means that, with a market cap of $53
billion, it is now more valuable than Twitter, Square, Spotify and eBay.
Several companies that shaped the latter half of the 20th century appear to be struggling to evolve and adapt to the modern marketplace. A prime example of this shift is the digital camera wave that started around the turn of the century and virtually eliminated conventional film cameras. Patent portfolio data illustrates how Fujifilm has leveraged its R&D strategy to engineer a lucrative venture into the healthcare domain and suggests where the company may be headed next.
Read MoreInterDigital is going through a period of significant change. Two years ago it acquired Technicolor’s patent licensing business in a transaction valued at $475 million. Then, in 2019, it successfully absorbed the French company’s research and innovation unit. Earlier this year, the firm announced that Eeva Hakoranta had been appointed chief licensing officer, replacing Tim Berguis who was heading into retirement.
Read MoreFoxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision (its parent company), has long been celebrated as a leading player in the IP community. Under chairman Terry Gou’s savvy guidance, the company has built a robust patent portfolio with recognised clout in the US as well as other key jurisdictions. In 2016, when Foxconn acquired Sharp for a cool $3.8 billion, there were questions over how the company would deploy the IP that came with it.
Read MoreWith SpaceX seemingly in the lead of the ’second space race’, several companies with high ambitions yet approaching from different angles, and technology rolling out across a wide spectrum, how can we understand where this new space race will take us, when we will get there, and who will lead us there?
Read MoreAnalysis shows that NTT’s steady approach to R&D has resulted in a broad patent portfolio that puts it in a strong position to develop cutting-edge innovations. The challenge is moving out of Japan to go global – it is one that the newly appointed CEO is keenly aware of.
Read MoreThe review of the Department of Defense’s use and acquisition of IP rights from private sector firms was first mandated by Congress in the 2016 National Defense Authorisation Act – a year before President Trump took office. There had been issues between the Department of Defense and their contractors over IP - in particular, technical data - for a number of years.
Read MoreThe drone industry has taken off in the past five years after initially developing in the military. Drone technology is now penetrating the consumer market and is increasingly being adopted for civil use. Goldman Sachs forecasted a $100 billion market opportunity for drones between 2015 and 2020.
Read MoreCanon is a prolific patent filer and possesses the world’s third largest portfolio of US grants, according to the most recent IAM/ktMINE US Patent 100. Despite having a reputation for pursuing a conservative patent strategy, the Japanese company has made a number of unexpected moves in the past year.
Read MoreOver the last century or so, automotive industry players have been competing to leverage economies of scale as they undergo continuous innovation centered mainly on gasoline and diesel engines. However, new technologiy trends such as electric vehicles, carbon fiber and other advanced materials, and autonomous driving are fostering discontinuous (disruptive) innovation on parallel tracks, and this will likely cause tremendous structural changes.
Read MoreOn 20th July 2019 NASA marked the 50 anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The event was a victory for the US – which at the time was battling the Soviets for the upper hand during the Cold War – and delivered on a promise made by President John F Kennedy. But no matter the political climate, NASA has worked to develop and patent inventions which benefit the American taxpayer.
Read MoreSeoul Semiconductor recently dipped its toes into the sales side of the patent market with an announcement that it will be auctioning off two patent packages – one at the end of this month and the other in January. The divestitures are part of a new strategy which will see the company slimming its portfolio to reinvest resources in developing modern technologies and strengthening its core business areas.
Read MoreHigh-tech and Internet-based businesses around the world compete to create new (and often disruptive) technologies, products and services. Many of these innovations result from technology convergence—where previously unrelated technologies are combined into a new product or service.
Read MoreOne of the signature nanotechnology research areas is nanoparticles. Much R&D is performed by scaling particles down to the nanoscale, through which researchers are able to observe behavior that differs from that of bulk materials, including quantum behaviors.
Read MoreAnalyzing the competitive landscape by performing a SWOT analysis among the three major aircraft engine manufacturers: GE Aviation, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls Royce.
Read MoreMedtronic is a medical device heavyweight. It’s been a long-time leader in the field and was ranked as the second top innovator in medtech in PatentSight’s most recent Top 100 Digital Innovators report. The company spends over $2 billion a year on its R&D and has a robust patent portfolio to show for it.
Read MoreThe National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association teamed up again this year to produce the Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted US Utility Patents in 2019 ranking. The Regents of the University of California was crowned the top recipient, with 631 grants. It has been the same story since 2012. The institution uses its high-quality assets to generate sizeable royalties, but its most recent figures indicate that returns are not what they were.
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