Patent deployment of smart manufacturing vendors focuses on computer technology, control, and measurement, says MIC Press release, January 26; Alex Wolfgram, DIGITIMES [Monday 1 February 2016]

Faced with the ever-changing global trends and markets, companies around the world are keen to develop innovative technologies and seek patent protection to safeguard their R&D results against counterfeiting and piracy. By carefully studying major patent databases, companies can peek into the technology trends and competitors' deployments while avoiding risks of patent litigation at the same time.

To further understand smart manufacturing patent portfolios of assignees and the possible impact on the industry, research firm MIC conducted a patent mining analysis based on the search results obtained from the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) for patents applied from January 1, 1996-June 30, 2015.

"Looking at the data mining results of the 2,288 smart-manufacturing-related patents, MIC found that most of them were concentrated in the sectors of electrical engineering (66.2%) and Instruments (21.7%), with a consolidated share of 87.9%," said David Chen, industry analyst with MIC. "By field, 41.7% of the patents were in computer technology, 11.1% in control, and 9.3% in measurement.

Other fields with smaller share include electrical machinery, apparatus, energy, digital communication, telecommunications, basic communication processes, audio-visual technology, and IT methods for management."

As far as segment is concerned, computer technology, control, and measurement are clearly the focal areas of vendors' patent deployment. Together with digital communication, telecommunications, and IT methods for management, the results showed that companies are deploying smart manufacturing patents mainly for the purpose of building cloud automated control service platforms.

Since fewer companies have applied smart manufacturing patents in chemical, food, biotechnology, mechanical, transport, and machine tools industries, these sectors are relatively uncontested for perspective vendors. For example, food makers can systematically build up their patent portfolios when inventing unique food production processes with smart manufacturing technologies.

The content & opinions in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of ManufacturingTomorrow

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