How can enterprises effectively use patent information?

With the development of knowledge economy, patent information plays an increasingly prominent and important role in the scientific research, production, management and trade activities of enterprises. However, many enterprises in China have a weak awareness of the use of patent information and a low level. Many enterprises don't even search for patent information before scientific research projects are established, which leads to unclear research direction, low starting point of research and development, repeated projects and other phenomena, which limits the healthy and rapid development of Chinese enterprises. This paper tries to put forward some suggestions for enterprises to use patent information. Patent literature contains abundant information, and patent information contains important technical, legal and economic information. In the specifications, claims, drawings and abstracts of patent documents, the technical contents of inventions and creations are disclosed, in which the technical information is novel, complete and continuous, covering a wide range of fields, with a huge number and uniform format, which is convenient for enterprises to read and retrieve and track the technical development trends. Legal information includes: the scope of claims, patent examination, reexamination and invalid results; Information related to the legal status of the patent right, such as grant, transfer, license, inheritance, change, waiver, termination and restoration; Information on the patent applicant, patentee, inventor or designer, information on the date of patent application, publication date and authorization date. Economic information includes: patent license, patent transfer or transferee and other information in patent information can also reflect the economic situation and market share of the applicant or patentee; In addition, we can also know the market distribution in a certain field, the situation of major competitors or partners, etc. Information on the country, applicant, patentee, inventor or designer that has passed the patent application. According to the statistics of the World Intellectual Property Organization, 70% to 90% of the world's innovations appear in patent documents, and making full use of patent information can save 60% of research and development time and 40% of research and development funds. Therefore, enterprises should pay attention to the technical, legal and economic information contained in patent documents. It is of great significance for the development of enterprises to conform to the trend and improve the level of scientific research. Patent documents provide a major reference for researchers to learn advanced technologies from all over the world. They can keep abreast of the latest scientific and technological trends and improve the starting point of research. When a scientific research project is established, it is necessary not only to carry out retrospective retrieval of patent information, but also to carry out thematic retrieval, so as to understand the stage of existing technologies at home and abroad, the future development direction and related fields of new technologies, as well as the technical development trend of the industry and the competitive focus of new technologies. In research and development, through the comparison of related patents, we can avoid repeated research, effectively learn from the world's advanced technology, absorb the essence of others, avoid the technical trap of existing patents, find and do evasive design as soon as possible, open up new ideas, and improve the scientific research level and technological innovation ability. In addition, in the process of technology export, technology introduction and technology cooperation, we can know the development of similar technologies at home and abroad through patent documents. For example, review and forecast imported projects, and determine the technical starting point, technical difficulty and technical maturity of imported technologies through patent information inquiry. If the imported technology has patents, it is also necessary to know the protection scope and technical content of its patents, as well as patent legal information such as the patentee, patent restrictions and protection areas, so as to avoid blind introduction. Patent documents can provide information for patented products and licensing trade. Information comes from the methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis of patent information by enterprises, which are generally divided into quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis. Quantitative analysis is to count the external characteristics (description items) of patent documents according to certain indicators (such as the number of patents), and interpret the obtained statistical data to obtain valuable information such as technological trends and enterprise trends; Qualitative analysis takes technical contents such as patent specifications and claims as the analysis object, and merges related patents according to technical characteristics, which is generally used to obtain information such as specific rights status and technical development route. The analysis and utilization of patent information is of great significance to enterprise management, which is the most basic link in enterprise patent management and runs through every link of enterprise technology development, patent application, protection and operation. Therefore, enterprises should establish a perfect patent information management system to provide reference for decision-making in production and operation, and create favorable conditions for enterprises to improve their independent innovation ability and participate in international competition. (Author Gu of Intellectual Property News)