The Tea Leaves of Emerging Tech
We've been talking about our upcoming webinar on Emerging Technology a lot at ktMINE. Now that it's right around the corner and the content has come together, one thing has become more obvious than we already thought it was.
When a decision is made to file a patent application, you have to ask yourself the question, "but why?" Why did Tesla file patents for "fast charging" and "vehicle communication interfaces" before 2008? Perhaps Tesla felt that fast charging batteries and vehicle communication interfaces aligned with their business strategy and therefore mapped those patents to their IP strategy.
You are probably thinking, "Well that's obvious." So are we, and everybody else it would seem. But when did it become obvious? After the fact, or while all the news is hot, it all becomes obvious. What if the obviousness of emerging technology could be anticipated before all the noise? What if you could rewind the clocks on blockchain and discover who was in the game early on? Then compare who is still in the game as it continues to get its legs?
So we continue to ask ourselves the question, why does a company file a patent application or several in a narrow field? The answer is presumed to be that the patents are going to aid in their business and product development strategy. Perhaps taken in aggregate you could find the tea leaves on emerging tech to begin reading them and uncover these critical insights using IP data before the hype floods your feed and inbox.
We are just getting started on this and there is a lot to talk about not only for part one of this webinar series but the follow on discussions. I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.
If you want to attend the Emerging Technologies: Strengthen your business strategy through IP webinar, you can reserve your seat here: https://bit.ly/2C7Fdoj
At the same time Tesla was filing those patents, thousands of other companies (and probably Tesla itself) were filing thousands of other patent applications on thousands of other technologies that went nowhere. (One that sticks out from my personal experience are the piles of applications directed to 3D television -- who actually wanted that!?) Maybe the filers truly believed the technologies would pan out. Maybe they *hoped* the technologies would pan out. Maybe they were just filing patents because "that's what you do." Lots of noise. Little signal.? Very interested to see this webinar.