Introduction
Early warning system (EWS) is a subset of the overall competitive intelligence (CI) activities in an organization. As the name implies, the system acts as an advance warning to the R&D and management about lurking IP treats. The workflow around EWS usually involves users from the IP & Scientific Information team, the R&D team, and the legal team collaborating on an ongoing basis. This is a year-round CI workflow, but every decision or action has to be carried out in a timely manner before it’s too late to capitalize on an opportunity or too expensive to overcome the threat
Shortlisting technology areas to be scanned
The first step towards setting up an EWS is discussing with all the necessary stakeholders from R&D and management and deciding upon the technology areas you want to monitor.
Creating search strategies and setting up the technology monitors
The next step is to create the necessary search strategies for each technology area. The existing patent dataset against the search should be checked for relevance by the subject matter expert and this will help in refining your search strategy. Once the search is final, you can set up alerts against each technology area. The alert frequency is usually weekly for this process.
Maintaining an up-to-date dataset against each technology area
For other competitive intelligence activities, you can also retain the work down in EWS to create and manage relevant datasets and build technology intelligence dashboards over them. These can be used by decision-makers and senior management to refine their innovation strategy.
Read in our latest article about how EWS gives advance warning to the R&D and management of a company about lurking IP treats and helps take strategic decisions in advance. Visit — IP driven Early Warning System
