Stay Informed as the Patent Landscape Changes
A patent search shows what exists today. But new patent applications will be published, new patents will issue, and your competitors will keep developing new technologies and expanding into new markets long after your original research is complete.
Patent Alerts provide ongoing monitoring of patent activity that matters to your business, technology, and markets. Instead of repeatedly searching patent databases, you can receive timely updates on relevant patent activity worldwide.
Pearson Strategy Group provides Patent Alert services for startups, established companies, patent attorneys, intellectual property law firms, R&D teams, engineering teams, executives, investors, and innovation leaders that need to stay informed about changes in their technology or marketplace.
Patent Alerts help you monitor competitors, track technologies, identify new opportunities, spot new risks, and find changes that could affect your business. The earlier you have this information, the more time you have to react and make better decisions.
HELPING BUSINESSES LOOK BEFORE THEY LEAP.™
What Are Patent Alerts?
Patent alerts are automated and designed to identify new patent information based on your specific criteria. Instead of running a single patent search at one point in time, a Patent Alert continues to monitor for new information that matches the subjects, companies, technologies, inventors, patents, or other criteria you want to follow.
Patent Alerts can be useful because the patent landscape never stands still. A search completed today cannot identify a patent application that publishes next month or next year. Ongoing monitoring helps close that information gap.
For businesses and intellectual property professionals, Patent Alerts can provide early indications of new inventions, competitor activity, emerging technologies, and changes in a patent portfolio or industry.
What Can Patent Alerts Monitor?
Patent monitoring is customized to your objectives and how much information you want to receive. Depending on what you need to know, Patent Alerts can monitor:
- Specific competitors or companies
- Specific inventors
- Technologies or technical concepts
- Patent classifications
- Keywords and terminology
- Specific patents or patent families
- Newly published patent applications
- Newly granted patents
- Changes in patent ownership
- Changes in patent legal status
The right monitoring strategy depends on the business question you are trying to answer. A company concerned about a particular competitor may need a very different Patent Alert from an engineering team monitoring developments across an entire technology category.
Defining that objective upfront reduces irrelevant results and keeps monitoring focused on information that supports real decisions.
How Do Patent Alerts Work?
A Patent Alert starts during intake, when we help you define what you need to monitor. We then use that information to build your alert based on relevant companies, inventors, keywords, patent classifications, technologies, patent families, and other variables.
We then provide you with a sample report showing what you would have received if you started the alert earlier. This report helps us ensure future results match your expectations and also gives you useful information.
Once we establish the monitoring criteria and start your alert, the alert will continuously compare newly available patent information against those criteria. We will then email you relevant results according to your preferred schedule, weekly or monthly.
The goal is not simply to receive more patent information; it is to receive relevant information early enough to act on it.
What Information Is Included in a Patent Alert?
A useful Patent Alert should provide enough information for you to understand what was discovered and why it deserves your attention.
Depending on the scope of the monitoring program, an alert may include:
- Patent or patent application numbers
- Patent titles
- Applicants or assignees
- Inventors
- Filing dates
- Publication dates
- Relevant abstracts or technical information
- Patent classifications
- Worldwide patent-family information
- Legal status
- Links to relevant documents
This additional context makes patent monitoring far more useful than receiving a large list of search results with no indication of where to begin.
Patent Alerts vs. a One-Time Patent Search
Patent research and Patent Alerts serve different purposes.
A traditional patent search provides a snapshot of the patent landscape at a particular point in time. You can use it to investigate prior art, evaluate patentability, assess freedom to operate, study a technology, or answer another defined research question.
Patent Alerts provide ongoing monitoring, typically after the snapshot is taken.
For example, a company could conduct patent research before beginning development of a new product. That research may provide valuable information about patents and published applications that exist at the time of the search. Six months later, however, newly published applications could introduce information not available during the original search.
Patent Alerts help organizations continue watching the landscape as new information becomes available.
How Can Patent Alerts Be Used to Monitor Competitors?
Patent filings can provide valuable clues about where a competitor may be investing time, money, and R&D resources.
Monitoring a competitor’s patent activity may help identify:
- New technologies under development
- New areas of research
- Changes in technical direction
- Expansion into adjacent technologies
- New inventors associated with a company
- Growing patent portfolios
- Geographic expansion of patent protection
- Technologies that may eventually become new products or services
Patent activity doesn’t tell you everything a competitor is doing, and a patent filing doesn’t guarantee a product will reach the market. However, when you evaluate patent information alongside other competitive information, it can provide another valuable signal about where a company may be headed.
This makes Patent Alerts particularly useful as part of a broader competitive intelligence strategy.
What Is Patent-Family Monitoring?
A patent family is a group of related patent documents that generally originate from the same or closely related invention and are from the same inventor(s).
Monitoring patent families provides a broader picture than reviewing a single U.S. patent or application because they often include filings in multiple countries or patenting authorities.
For example, if a competitor begins pursuing protection for related technology in several countries, those filings may show where the company considers its intellectual property strategically important. Patent-family information can also help identify related applications and patents that might otherwise be overlooked when viewing one document in isolation.
For companies operating internationally, understanding patent families is especially important when evaluating competitors, technology development, and the geographic scope of patent activity.
Worldwide Patent Monitoring
Innovation is global, and relevant patent information often lies outside the United States.
Pearson Strategy Group uses professional-grade research resources to examine more than 100 patenting authorities worldwide. This broader coverage can help identify relevant patent activity outside the U.S. that may affect your technology, competitors, products, or long-term strategy.
Worldwide monitoring is especially valuable for companies operating internationally, businesses with global competitors, patent attorneys representing clients in technology-intensive industries, and organizations evaluating emerging technologies.
Limiting monitoring to U.S. patents alone can leave important parts of the patent landscape unseen.
Who Should Use Patent Alerts?
Startups
Startups can use Patent Alerts to follow technologies and competitors while products and intellectual property strategies evolve. Monitoring can help leadership teams recognize developments that could affect product planning, fundraising discussions, R&D priorities, or patent strategy.
Established Companies
Companies in competitive markets can use ongoing patent monitoring to track competitors, follow key technologies, monitor industry changes, and identify activity that may warrant further investigation.
Patent Attorneys and Intellectual Property Law Firms
Patent attorneys can use Patent Alerts to help clients stay informed about patent activity affecting their clients’ technologies, competitors, or portfolios.
R&D and Engineering Teams
Engineers and research teams can monitor emerging technologies, technical concepts, inventors, and companies related to their work.
Executives and Innovation Leaders
Chief Technology Officers, Chief Innovation Officers, Engineering Directors, senior managers, product leaders, and strategy teams can use Patent Alerts as a critical intelligence source when evaluating their technology direction, patenting opportunities, competitive threats, and investment priorities.
Investors
Investors evaluating technology companies or industries can use patent monitoring as a key source of information about innovation activity, intellectual property development, competitors, and changes within a technology landscape.
Patent Alerts for Competitive Intelligence
Competitive intelligence involves systematically collecting and analyzing information about competitors, technologies, industries, and markets to support better strategic decisions.
Patent Alerts can contribute an important source of that intelligence.
A competitor may publicly announce a new product shortly before launch, but its patent activity may begin much earlier. Monitoring patent publications often reveals new developments before conventional market research makes them available.
Patent Alerts help organizations identify changes worth investigating, including new technology directions, increased patent activity within a particular field, new competitors entering a technology area, or established competitors expanding their intellectual property portfolios.
Patent data should not be interpreted in isolation. Combined with other business and market intelligence, it helps organizations build a more complete picture of their competitive environment.
What are Moderated Patent Alerts?
Automated patent alerts are valuable, but they may not fit every organization.
That’s where moderated patent alerts fit in. Instead of relying entirely on an unattended automated query that sends you results to review, Pearson Strategy Group can review results, refine monitoring strategies as technologies and terminology evolve, and help notify you of significant results needing your attention. This managed approach reduces noise and saves time while keeping you informed about what you need to know.
How Often Should Patent Alerts Be Updated?
The right update frequency depends on the technology, industry, competitors, and decisions you’re supporting.
A fast-moving technology sector may warrant frequent updates because new applications and competitive developments change rapidly. A more mature or slower-moving industry may require less frequent updates. Most people underestimate how much is changing in their area of interest. We recommend reviewing alerts for needed updates at least once per year.
What Are the Benefits of Patent Alerts?
An effective Patent Alert program can help organizations:
- Stay current as new patent information becomes public
- Monitor competitors and their patent activity
- Identify emerging technologies
- Follow specific inventors or companies
- Track important patent families
- Recognize potential risks earlier
- Discover technology and market opportunities
- Support R&D and product planning
- Inform intellectual property strategy
- Reduce the need for repeated manual searches
The greatest benefit is awareness. Important patent information is most useful when you discover it early enough to assess its significance and decide whether to act.
How Much Do Patent Alerts Cost?
Automated patent alerts cost $600 annually plus a small one-time setup charge. Minor updates throughout the year are included.
Moderated patent alerts require much more effort for us and are quoted upon request.
Each Patent Alert can range from simple to complex and may monitor one or multiple technologies, competitors, and inventors. Some companies with multiple interests and competitors prefer to separate them into separate alerts.
Frequently Asked Questions About Patent Alerts
What is a patent alert?
A patent alert is an ongoing monitoring service that identifies newly available patent information matching defined criteria, such as a company, inventor, technology, keyword, patent classification, or patent family. We email the results to you weekly or monthly.
What can Patent Alerts monitor?
Patent Alerts can monitor companies, competitors, inventors, technologies, keywords, patent classifications, patent families, newly published applications, newly granted patents, ownership information, and legal status.
Can Patent Alerts monitor competitors?
Yes. Patent Alerts can monitor patent activity associated with specific companies and may help identify new technologies, areas of R&D activity, changes in technical direction, changes in market direction, and expansion of patent portfolios.
Can Patent Alerts monitor patents outside the United States?
Yes. Pearson Strategy Group uses professional-grade research resources covering more than 100 patenting authorities worldwide, allowing monitoring to extend beyond U.S. patent activity.
What is the difference between a patent search and a Patent Alert?
A patent search investigates information available at a particular point in time. A Patent Alert provides ongoing monitoring so relevant patent information published after the original search can be identified.
What is a patent family?
A patent family is a collection of related patent documents associated with the same or closely related invention, belonging to the same inventor, and sharing the same priority date, the earliest filing date of a patent application that discloses the invention. Patent families can include applications and patents filed with different patenting authorities around the world.
How often are Patent Alerts sent?
Patent Alert frequency depends on the monitoring objectives and service arrangement. Alerts may be provided either weekly or monthly.
Are Patent Alerts useful for competitive intelligence?
Yes. Patent activity can reveal competitors’ technology development, expanding patent portfolios, new research areas, and shifts in strategic direction. Patent information is most useful when considered alongside other competitive and market intelligence.
Stay Ahead of Changes in Your Patent Landscape
You cannot react to information you do not know exists. We’ve found that most people don’t realize how much critical information they’re missing.
Whether you need to keep up with your competitors, evolving technologies, new markets, protect a business strategy, or guide R&D decisions, Pearson Strategy Group can help you build a Patent Alert program around the information that matters to you.
Contact Pearson Strategy Group to discuss your Patent Alert needs.
