Discovery Dispatch

Most companies have competitors and monitoring the activity of competors may give insight onto the direction a company is heading.  New products, innovation and industry leadership are often accompanied with patent applications to protect a companies intellectual property.  Patents allow a company to prevent others from using, manufacturing or profiting from an invention over the term of the patent.  This exclusionary right allows a company a period of time to monpolize the invention.  Since 2001 the United States Patent Office has been publishing patent applications.  While applications are not a form of protection, they may lead to patents that are.  We monitor both published patents and published patent applications to provide better converage of the IP landscape and to see what is coming in the future.  This insight may be of great value in monitoring the competitive landscape in your industry.