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In today’s rapidly evolving innovation landscape, staying ahead requires a deep understanding of the intellectual property (IP) environment. Patent mapping is an essential tool to make well-informed strategic decisions. By analysing and transforming complex patent data into clear visual insights, it empowers businesses and research organisations to identify market opportunities, explore state-of-the-art technological trends, and mitigate risks in R&D investments. EXELISIS offers comprehensive and detailed patent mapping services using advanced commercial software like Patsnap.
To showcase the value of this approach, we conducted an analysis of the Greek patent landscape between 2005 and 2024, filtering our results to include only the patents published by the Greek patent office or the patents having at least one Greek assignee. This exercise offers a macroscopic overview of Greece’s innovation ecosystem, shedding light on top players, industries, and emerging technological areas. It exemplifies the actionable insights such assessments can deliver, reinforcing our ability to provide high-impact Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) management services tailored to our clients’ needs.
Patent mapping can offer identification of relevant existing patents as well as non-intuitive IP landscape characteristics and dynamics. Application trends (Figure 1) demonstrate the number of relevant patent applications per year, in specific fields, sectors, and technologies. Understandably, when looking at patenting trends of specific countries/authorities, as in our example search, the results are less dynamic. The patent application trend for Greece between 2005 and 2024 reveals that approximately 1000 patents were submitted annually between 2005 and 2014. This number has decreased over the last ten years, most likely due to the Greek recession and the COVID outbreak.
It is not unexpected that only 60-70% of the patent applications are granted. It should be reminded that patents are granted and maintained for a limited time. Taking that into consideration, we have to be careful when analysing the general patent application trends compared to patent activity status. In our example, the number of active patents has been decreasing over time, spanning over the last two decades.
Figure 1. Application trend in Greece between 2005 and 2024: patent applications (red), patents issued (grey) and patents currently active (green) between.
Breaking down the types of patents (Figure 2) allows for a more general overview of what type of protection is considered applicable for the given search, as, for example, when searching for relevant patents of particular technically applied technological systems. Examining how this breakdown has been evolving over the years could also offer value in identifying trends. Again, here it is important to take into account that different patent types are providing different protection durations. In Greece, the number of utility models has gained considerable traction over the last 5 years, signifying an increasing interest in this form of Intellectual Property (IP) protection.
Figure 2. Types of the active (including pending and under examination)
patents between 2005 and 2024.
The data also shows that the number of Industrial Designs has increased since 2019, indicating that both functional and aesthetic design are becoming increasingly important in technological applications. Meanwhile, inventions continue to dominate the patent landscape, accounting for the majority of annual submissions.
Figure 3. Geographic coverage (potential target markets) of the active Greek patents.
Understanding the different geographic coverage (jurisdiction), of the relevant patents (more than one jurisdiction can be targeted within each patent family as shown on Figure 3) that resulted from a search, can highlight the geographical target markets, as well as the geographical opportunities for patent filing. Further filtering for applications, industry, and types of technology (classifications) can provide more insights about activity or freedom of a specific e.g. sector in particular regional markets. Such analyses are usually of high importance for strategic decisions of commercialisation for an invention. For example, 35% of the currently active patents were originally submitted to the Greek patent authority, either by a Greek or a foreign assignee. It is noticeable that over 2/3 of the currently active Greek patents are commercialised abroad.
Technological classification (IPC, CPC and more) offer a valuable tool for searching, categorising, identifying relevance and consequently indicating patenting (/innovating) freedom. Navigating through the classifications, which follow strict grouping guidelines, and relevance can be a task of its own. Macroscopically, when analysing a market/field, identification of top classification codes vs the application domains of their patents can offer an outlook on the market’s structure and the innovation intensity within that structure (Figure 4). In particular, when analysing relevant applications for an invention under focus, assessing the technology classifications relevance can offer key input for further relevant patent search refinement and a more robust output regarding the innovator’s freedom to operate.
Figure 4. Application domain vs CPC (sub class) classification of active patents
Similarly, when looking at the Greek patents, the cross-evaluation of top classification codes (CPC) with the main technology topics (Figure 5) can demonstrate the connection of these classifications with each general scientific field, meaning what field(s) are actively working on each of those classification codes and how interdisciplinarity is characterising the patents that have resulted from a given search.
Figure 5. Technology topic vs CPC (sub class) classification of active patents
The analysis can go a step further, by comparing the patenting activity of Greek scientific fields to that worldwide (Figure 6), looking at the distribution of currently active (legal status) patent filings in each technology topic and observing differences in how relatively active in patenting those fields are in Greece. For instance, the well documented prosperity of Greek scientists in medicine, chemistry and biology, is also evident into the IP environment, depicting the strong pharmaceutical sector of the country.
However, in most cases, patent mapping is not conducted to focus on analysing just the dynamics and characteristics of a market or a technological field. It usually focuses on particular technologies, advancements and relevance to specific aspects. The resulting lists of relevant patents, potentially relevant technologies, potential competitors and promising (or alternative) applications are usually the key output of a targeted mapping the patent landscape, providing a valuable input for strategic decision making but also for the next step of patent filing via a patent attorney.
Figure 6. Technology topic distribution of Greek patents vs the rest of the world.
Figure 7. Analysis of competitor patent portfolio
For instance, it is very often to conduct additional patent searches, focusing on analysing the relevant as well as the general patent portfolios of key competitors (Figure 7). Such searches (as shown in the figure above) are usually directed towards analysing the technological classes a competitor is active in, gaining insights of their patent portfolio valuation, as well as identifying fields of expertise and potential exploitation events and collaborations.
The true value of patent mapping analysis lies in its flexibility and precision, making it an indispensable tool for innovators and decision-makers. By leveraging advanced methodologies, such as complex keyword-based searches combined with repetitive filtering, patent mapping can be tailored to focus on specific applications, technologies, classifications, assignees, and even legal statuses or authorities. This granularity allows us to zero in on precisely the insights needed to address diverse challenges, from identifying technological opportunities to supporting innovators in assessing their Freedom-to-Operate (FTO), thus ensuring a robust foundation of actionable intelligence.
The benefits of a well-conducted patent mapping analysis extend far beyond understanding the current innovation landscape. The insights it provides can directly inform exploitation planning and strategic decision-making. For example:
While the analysis presented here offers a broad overview of Greece’s innovation ecosystem, our expertise spans across numerous targeted and confidential cases, enabling us to uncover critical insights specific to each client’s needs. By integrating patent mapping into your innovation strategy, you can unlock powerful intelligence to refine your R&D, enhance your competitive position, and drive successful exploitation of your technologies.