Here's what we cover in this article. Click the links to jump to the relevant section:

Please note that these options apply to reports generated from the 'Custom Builder':

If you've applied a classifier/s, to a report in the custom builder, you'll be asked what you'd like to do with the unclassified families (options may vary depending on your subscription type). Unclassified families are the patent family results in the report that are unrelated to the classifier. This is oftentimes useful so you can review patent families that fall outside of the technology classifiers that have been applied i.e. of our competitors, who owns what outside of our core technology areas.

'Exclude' will be selected by default here.

Selecting 'include as unrelated' means that there will be one group of results in the report named 'unrelated' which are not a match for the technology classifier.

'Cluster' the results, means that the unrelated group of patent families will also be placed into clustered technology categories so you can gain more insights into what technologies this group contains.

'Apply UTT' means that the universal technology taxonomy will be applied to the unrelated group of patent families to gain more insights into what technologies this group contains.

When creating a report and applying more than one technology classifier, you will be presented with the following 'Technology settings' on report creation.

Group in mutually exclusive technologies means that each patent family of your report, will be accounted for in ONE SINGLE classifier category to which it is most relevant (has the highest classifier score above the 0.5 threshold).

Allow overlapping technologies means that each patent family of your report, will be accounted for in EVERY classifier category to which it is relevant (where the family has classifier a score above the 0.5 threshold resulting in duplicate results.)

Click here to learn more about these options and when to select each option. By default, group in mutually exclusive technologies will be selected.

If you run a report without applying classifiers in the first instance, technology clustering will by default be selected for your grouping in the next window.

A technology cluster refers to a grouping of patent families relating to the same technical area. (Click here to learn more about clustering).

With clustering selected, you'll be presented with your clustering options before you 'run report'.

In this example, with all four portfolios ticked, the platform will take into consideration and create technology clusters from all of the patent families of all of the selected portfolios.

For example, you may want to understand what the top technology areas are in a specific industry. To do this, you can add all of the portfolios of interest into a report, i.e. all sports companies (Nike, Adidas, Fila, Amer Sports). As a result, there will be no ‘unrelated’ patent families.

(If you do not wish to apply any technology grouping to your report, untick these boxes.)

It is possible to cluster one portfolio first, and see how other portfolios read onto that. Run a report without applying classifiers, and then just select the target organisation in your clustering options as shown below:

The Clustering tool will look at all of the patent families from the 'target' clustered portfolio (Nike, as shown above) and technology clusters will be formed based on their active portfolio. Nike's portfolio will generate the technology clusters, and then the algorithm will determine which of the other portfolio's assets fall into those clusters.

Clustering to one portfolio will allow you to see if there is any cross over between the 'target' portfolio and other portfolios i.e. which of the others orgs assets read onto Nike's portfolio.

Any of the other portfolio's assets that don't fall into 'Nike's' clusters, will be placed into a group called 'unrelated' (see below). Note how only the competitor assets fall into the unrelated group, and they are 'unrelated to Nike's portfolio'.

Some questions to ask when generating this type of report:

Q. What technology areas does the tool generate from the ‘target’ (clustered) portfolio?

Q. What are the technology areas that cross over? i.e. what do the other orgs own in the target's technology clusters?

Q. In what technology clusters are the targets competitors also filing and innovating in? i.e. what do the other orgs own in the unrelated column?

If the target is your own portfolio you could ask:

Q. Do my competitors have more patent families than me in specific technology clusters?

If you have the Universal Technology Taxonomy included within your subscription, this will also be an option available to you in the custom builder. The options to apply UTT, is also in the options window when generating a report without any custom classifiers applied.

For more information on UTT, contact the support team here or read more about the UTT here.

In a patent upload report and a boolean search report via custom builder, or the Landscape report from the Landscape report tile, you have the option to group by top level owner or direct owner:

The direct owner is the company that the patent family is assigned to.

The top level owner represents the overarching parent company of the direct owner, ie. Porsche and top level owner Volkswagon.

For more information on grouping within the platform click here.