Even for companies actively using patent rights as a crucial foundational asset for their business, it’s rare to start with technology that is both registerable and realistically possesses sufficient marketability from the outset.
The business items or ideas presented in startup plans, product introductions, or investment pitches often have business potential but lack technical substance.
Of course, since the most fundamental and ultimate goal of business is sales, if a product lacks significant technology but can appeal well to consumers through marketing or other means, that might be sufficient.
However, by skillfully utilizing publicly disclosed patents, the initial Business Model (BM) can be significantly enhanced and made more competitive. This includes securing patent rights to protect the BM.
It is precisely the patent that elevates an idea-level business model into a technology with genuine differentiation.
Patent trends are closely linked to industry trends. This has always been the case, but the connection has become even stronger recently.
There seem to be two reasons for this.
First, due to the fundamental nature of the patent system, patent trends and industry trends are bound to be linked. Patents exist to protect industry. Things that are not industrial are not patentable subject matter, so patents naturally follow industry.
Second, as industries become increasingly sophisticated, ideas and product competitiveness have become more important than mass production and manufacturing.
Over the past few years, many Korean companies have stopped manufacturing directly. With just a concept and an idea, manufacturing can be outsourced to specialized companies in China or Korea. We are now in the era of OEM and ODM.
As direct manufacturing declines, product concepts and ideas have become even more critical. The only means to protect these concepts and ideas is through patents. This is why the link between patents and industry is strengthening.
Simply examining patent trends can reveal the trends in a specific field. In the short term, it enhances the competitiveness of newly launched products and services. In the long term, it becomes valuable data for gauging the future technological direction of a company.
Any newly manufactured product launched onto the market inevitably has some differentiation (Unique Selling Point) from competing products. And usually, that differentiation point originates from solving consumer complaints (pain points) that existing products failed to address.
This process aligns precisely with inventing something new while resolving existing inconveniences.
By utilizing publicly available patent data at this stage, the points of differentiation can be further enhanced, leading to valuable inventions.
Let’s call this patent-related differentiation point the UTP (unique technical point).
Finding a product’s UTP and developing it further is our task. While UTPs can be identified through competitor analysis or market research, there’s a much easier way to discover and develop them.
That is by utilizing publicly disclosed patents.
By reviewing disclosed patents, the initial patent idea can be further refined, evolving into a product that possesses both market competitiveness and technological competitiveness in the actual marketplace.
In fact, this is the ultimate goal of the patent system. The reason for granting exclusive ‘patent’ rights for a certain period in exchange for clear and distinct technology disclosure is precisely this.
