IP and Strategic Surveillance: Concepts and Tools
On October 18, 2024, ANCES Academy hosted a webinar to explore the role of intellectual property (IP) and strategic surveillance in business development. The session, led by CEEI staff, focused on introducing key concepts and methodologies in strategic surveillance, which involves the systematic collection and analysis of external data to optimize decision-making. Attendees learned about tools like boolean operators, truncation, and proximity searches for effective information retrieval.
Attendees, including technical staff and managers from CEEIs, companies like Gonvarri MS R&D, and Nature Biotechnology, learned to apply these tools to fields like the Circular Economy, with practical examples in biomass and solar energy
Patents were a central focus of the webinar, showcasing their value as a source of technical, commercial, and legal information. Participants were guided on how to use patent databases, such as ESPACENET and PATENTSCOPE, to gather insights on technological trends, competitive landscapes, and emerging opportunities. For instance, patent documents were highlighted as a structured source of valuable information, often not disclosed elsewhere, providing details about inventions, key players, and industry-specific trends.
Several practical examples tied the tools to real-world applications. The Green Future Platform, accessible via a Google Chrome RSS extension, demonstrated how to monitor updates and news relevant to the Circular Economy. The OEPM website was used to search for patents related to biomass, offering insights into specific innovations. Moreover, a search in CEPI revealed trends in circular economy activities within various sectors, while Espacenet was used to explore patents related to solar energy, illustrating the application of international patent classification systems to discover inventions.
By integrating IP management with strategic surveillance, the session emphasized how companies could stay competitive by tracking and protecting innovations while identifying new opportunities. The webinar was part of a broader initiative to foster business support and sustainable development under the RESOURCE project, funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe program.