Patent monitoring is the systematic and organised tracking of patent publications and filings, carried out to monitor technological, competitive, and legal developments in a given field and/or about one or more previously identified competitors.
It makes it possible to:
- Identify competitors’ innovations and anticipate their research and development priorities.
- Detect potential infringements of industrial property rights (patents similar to your own inventions).
- Avoid the risk of counterfeiting by identifying patents in force in your sector of activity.
- Guide your innovation strategy and support investment, partnership, or filing decisions.
- Monitor the legal status of patents (maintenance, abandonment, expiration).
- Act against identified patent applications/patents, for example, by filing third-party observations or oppositions.
In practice:
- Patent monitoring can be targeted at players (competitors), inventors, technologies (keywords, IPC/CPC classifications) or geographical areas (national, European, and international offices).
- It is carried out using national and international patent databases and specialised platforms that access them.