Global IP Matrix - Issue 2

Smart IP Data
Seize business opportunities
using smart IP data
immediately informed when they start to
use a different law firm for its filings into
your jurisdiction, giving you a window of
opportunity to also obtain work from the
tech giant whilst its open to using new
law firms.
Additionally if you are already working
for a major applicant or with a law firm,
you can set up an alert to be notified
when they start using a new law firm to
handle the filings in your jurisdiction.
You can immediately step in and start
to strengthen your relationship with the
client to ensure that you retain them
rather them losing them to another
competitor.
Although it seems that the tech
giants may hold a significant
amount of your personal data, in
this article we explore how you
can easily obtain significant data
insights about THEM; Smart data
that informs and enables you to
spot new business opportunities
with the tech giants.
We’re all familiar with the big tech giants
that seem to always be in the news. Headlines
about their controversial moves with
acquisitions, data breaches or court cases,
but most of the time it’s about their latest
innovations.
For example, Facebook has generated news
headlines (not just about its data breaches)
but also about its latest innovation named
Athena, a low earth orbit internet satellite that
is designed to “efficiently provide broadband
access to unserved and underserved areas
throughout the world”. Google has also
been making headlines with its new Google
Assistant developments. The latest being an
AI assistant that can communicate to make
phone calls and schedule appointments for
its user with a believable human voice. This
is considered by many as a breakthrough
development in the application
of AI and natural language
analysis.
Regardless of the good or
controversial headlines the
tech giants may generate, an
undeniable fact about them is
that they are very innovative
and file many patents. For
patent attorneys and law firms
these tech giants can be a
great source of business and
revenue. That being said, they
can be considered a competitive
business space for law firms to
enter, but is that really true? The
patent filing data shows that there is a diverse
spread of law firms that actively work with
these companies and that the spread of law
firms regularly changes.
The rise and fall
What’s interesting to analyse is the rise and
Ms Doris Spielthenner, Director, Law Firm Analytics, CPA Global
www.cpaglobal.com
fall of patent filings from these tech giants
amongst specific law firms. Looking at the
latest PCT filing data for 2018, Google works
with more than 35 US based law firms. Upon
a closer look at their ‘Source of PCT filings’ in
Filing Analytics, it shows that three of these
law firms started working with Google in 2016
and 14 of them only just started working with
them in 2017.
At first glance this may look like
deliberate diversification, which
would mean that the top law firms
who would have gotten the most
amount of work must be getting
less and that the work from Google
is more diversified. However, this
doesn’t appear to be the case here.
The top five major law firms who
have historically received the
most work from Google still
received a sizable amount of
work from Google in 2017 and
2018. So questions then arise, how is the work
being divided amongst law firms, who are the
new entrants receiving additional work and
are there any law firms receiving less work
i - Google’s ‘Source of PCT filings’ graph. Source: filinganalytics.io
from Google? Let’s take a closer
look at the patent filing data to get
the answers.
Upon looking at the case flows for
Google, we can clearly see some
law firms losing business from the
tech giant even though there is no
shortage of work coming from them.
For example, the screenshot from Filing Analytics
shows that Law Firm 4 and 5 lost business
from Google over the past years, while Law Firm
6 only started receiving work from them in 2017.
Law Firms 1-3 show a nice increase in work in
2017 but they haven’t received any work from
Google in 2018.
ii - Google’s ‘Source of PCT filings’ graph. Source: filinganalytics.io
Now there may be many reasons for this such
as the law firms may not have the technology
speciality area or there could just be a lack of
resource capacity etc. However the important
aspect to note is that there is plenty of work
available from Google but it’s now being snapped
up by new entrants. New entrants who are most
likely focussing strongly on business development
and actively targeting new clients like
Google, rather than just relying on their existing
clients for work.
iii - Google’s ‘Filed PCT Applications’ graph. Source: filinganalytics.io
iv - Facebook’s ‘Filed PCT Applications’ graph. Source: filinganalytics.io
Another interesting point to raise is the pattern
of the work declining from Google amongst the
law firms over the years.
While some law firms show an increase in
work for 2018, Law Firm H shows a sharp drop
and Law Firm L shows no work for 2018. Will
these two lose all business from Google in the
next year?
The data from Google’s ‘Filed PCT
Applications’ data also shows similar patterns
of consecutive drops.
Observe the sharp drops in Law Firm B and F,
and the gradual drop in filings for Law Firm
A and D.
The same pattern holds true for other tech
giants like Amazon and Facebook. For
example, if we take a closer look at Facebook’s
‘Filed PCT applications’ in Filing Analytics it
shows that law firm A had an increase in work
from Facebook over the years, whilst law firms
B and F show a clear decrease in work volume
from them.
These drops and rises, amongst other factors
could be considered to be indicative of the
strength of the relationship between the client
and the firm and the effort put in by the law
firm towards business development and client
retention.
Entering &
keeping your
place in the
market
So how can a law firm who wants to work
with a tech giant know when would be the
best time to try and enter the market? Or
if you are a law firm already
working with a tech giant or a
significant applicant, how can
you prevent losing business
from them to another law
firm?
Apart from the patent data
and analysis that Filing
Analytics already provides,
its new Watch feature ensures
that you are alerted to any
filing changes related to a law
firm or applicant, without you
having to do any extra work!
For example, if you put a Watch
alert on Facebook you will be
v - New ‘Watch’ feature on filinganalytics.io
Team up with
another Law
Firm
Another key feature to assist law firms to
obtain more work is the ‘pi Connect’ feature,
which connects you to other law firms to easily
set up new business partnerships. Rather than
try and work with the tech giants directly,
why not connect with a law firm in another
jurisdiction to handle the tech giants incoming
filings for your jurisdiction. This is also an easy
way for law firms to increase their business
opportunities with no extra resourcing
required on their part.
vi - New ‘pi Connect’ feature on filinganalytics.io
To discover which tech giants
you can find work from or find
out who is working with who
visit http://filinganalytics.io
and obtain a free report on any
law firm of your choice with
details of the firm’s recent filings,
their filing partners in your
jurisdiction, client lists and more.
All this information is publicly available under
register sources for different jurisdictions. These
actual snippets have been identified using Filing
Analytics which collects these information
points from diverse sources and makes the data
available and easily searchable while providing
further analytics on the data.
30 www.gipmatrix.com www.gipmatrix.com
31