1. Problem-oriented patent mining
There will be various problems in the production and operation of enterprises, such as product quality defects or poor user experience, which often directly affect the business development and market competitiveness of enterprises. Enterprises can collect, sort out and analyze these problems, find out whether the technical bottleneck has not broken through or the market direction is uncertain, and then brainstorm on this basis, clarify the methods to solve the problems, and determine the technological innovation and protection methods. Finally, enterprise managers, R&D personnel and patent agents will screen out the most valuable technical solutions suitable for enterprise development by integrating market, law and technology.
2. Patent mining based on competitor's technology.
As the saying goes, "know yourself and know yourself, and you will win every battle." In patent mining, we should pay more attention to the technical research direction of competitors, analyze the key points of patent mining and layout of competitors, and then adopt targeted patent mining strategies. When an enterprise enters a certain market, it often carries out patent mining and layout in advance. By analyzing the patent information of major competitors, we can understand the key points of the market layout of competitors' technological development, and then combine the advantages of enterprises to sort out the innovation points, so as to dig out patents that can protect our own products and technologies and limit competitors.
3. Project-oriented patent mining
Enterprises often tackle a technical problem in the form of project research. Guided by project research, we must first make clear the technical difficulties that the project will break through and all the functions realized relative to the existing technology, and subdivide each technical point to achieve this goal, and make clear the technical solution realization path of each technical point. Secondly, the technical elements of each function are comprehensively analyzed to determine whether the technical elements meet the requirements of novelty, creativity and practicality of patent application and whether they meet the scope of patent application.
Second, the enterprise patent layout
The patent layout should be rationally planned after comprehensive consideration of market patents, own patents, competitors' patents, laws and regulations and other related factors. The commonly used patent layouts of enterprises mainly include the following types [3].
1. Roadblock layout
It refers to the layout mode of applying for a patent for one or more technical solutions necessary to achieve a certain technical goal and forming a roadblock patent. The advantage of roadblock layout is low application and maintenance cost, but the disadvantage is that competitors can bypass the roadblock by avoiding design.
2. Wall layout
It refers to the layout mode of all evasive design schemes applying for patents to achieve a certain technical goal, forming a wall patent. Wall layout can prevent competitors from invading their own technical territory, and does not give competitors any space to escape design and find alternatives.
3. Carpet layout
It refers to patenting all technical solutions to achieve a certain technical goal or product, and forming the layout mode of carpet patent network. This model can effectively limit the entry of competitors, but its disadvantage is that the cost is too high, time-consuming and labor-intensive.
4. Fence layout
It means that when the core patents are mastered by competitors, many technical solutions around the technical theme will apply for patents, forming a fence patent layout model. This model is very suitable for "technology-following" enterprises that entered this field later.
All the above patent layout modes have their own advantages and disadvantages, and there is no simple distinction between good and bad. Enterprises need to combine their own technical fields and development reality, and choose one or more hybrid models that are most suitable for them to carry out patent layout.