The Archived Canadian Patent Competitive Intelligence (November 23, 2010)

Muchiu (Henry) Chang, PhD. Cantab.
henry.chang212@gmail.com
November 23, 2010
Canadian Competitive Intelligence
Database

Characteristics of Competition
• Innovation is the most important corporate
competency [1]
• Intangible intellectual property right (IPR) is the
core sustainable competitive advantage [2]
• Competition of high risk, high gain
• Encouraging innovation, identifying new idea,
taking more calculated risks and continuous
innovation are the keys for prosperity
© Muchiu (Henry) Chang 2010

Competition Risks
• IPR Infringement
• Killer applications – kill the competitors or
ourselves?
• Are we reinventing the wheel?

CI - Information about Risks and Niches
• Who are the players, competitors and partners?
• What are their strength and weakness?
• Are they becoming stronger or weaker in a
specific market sector?
• What are their intentions or their prospects?
• What are our market niches?
• What is our short/long term development goal?
• What are the strategy, the resources and the
steps needed to achieve this goal?

Patent Mapping, IPR and CI
• Patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret
are the four kinds of IPR
• Patent is an index for the achievements in
innovation investment
• Patent is a market shield to prevent competitors
from entering a specific market
• Patent mapping is a patent database mining
method
• Obtain CI from patent mapping analysis for
strategic development planning [3]

US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
and Its Patent Database
• U.S. is a major patent market in the world
• USPTO patent database is the largest
patent database in the world
• It is updated weekly
• US is the largest Canadian export partner
in 2009, accounting for about 73% of
Canadian exports [4]

Our CI database
• Synchronized with USPTO patent database to
provide up-to-date information about Canada’s
competitive advantage
• Included information of 2871 Canadian
companies/organizations having US patents
granted from Jan. 1, 2004 to Nov. 23, 2010
• Provided synergies and intelligence in strategic
planning for economic development, immigration,
new immigrant employment and human resource

Overall Picture
• Ontario is the largest patent hosting province (52% of
the new patents issued to Canadian entities in 2009)
• Montreal is the largest patent hosting city in Canada
• Waterloo, dominated by Research in Motion (RIM), is
the largest innovation hub of Ontario, second to
Montreal in Canada
• Halifax, Fredericton, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary &
Vancouver are the largest innovation hubs to Nova
Scotia (NS), New Brunswick (NB), Manitoba,
Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia (BC)
respectively in 2009
• RIM keeps continuous growth in US patents holding for
the last 10 years
• RIM alone contributes over half of the Ontario patent
growth from 2008 to 2009

Aspects of GTA potential 22 employers
• GTA includes City of Toronto, Region of Durham,
Halton, Peel and York, unless specified otherwise
• The potential 22 employers are ranked by the number
of US patents they hold
• The auto and environment protection sectors have
secured more US patents in this year than in 2009, as
in Figure 4
• The medicine/bio sector innovation growth is likely
from the companies in Toronto, while innovation
growth in material processing sector is mainly from the
companies in Caledon and Oakville

Figure 1, Patent Statistics by Hosting Cities
Source: our study

Figure 2, Annual Patent Statistics by Provinces
Source: our study

Figure 3, 2005-2010.11.23 Cumulative Patent Distribution by
Sectors for the top 22 GTA Potential Employers
Source: our study

Figure 4, Annual Patent Statistics of Sectors of the top 22 GTA Potential Employers
Source: our study

Conclusion
• Patent mapping analysis can disclose the
real-time economic strength of an entity,
such as a company, a city or a country
• At the present stage, we have identified the
major Canadian players and their strength in
the global market
• Our information is synchronized with USPTO
patent database to provide the latest
nationwide competitive intelligence weekly
• Our work can provide reference baseline for
further sophisticated market surveys

• Solely ranking a company by the number of
granted patents may not be enough
• The name list may not be thorough
• Further investigation of the quality of the
patents will be needed to disclose the real
niches and opportunities
• In addition to patent, there are IPR of
copyright, trademark and trade secret
• More sophisticated research efforts will be
needed to nurture new IPR
Remarks

References
[1] “Integrated Change Management Approach in the Knowledge Economic
Epoch”, Muchiu (Henry) Chang, “American Society of Engineering
Management Summer 2010 issue of the Practice Periodical”, July 2010
https://www.netforumondemand.com/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?
Site=asem&WebCode=PRAPER
[2] “Sun Tzu and sustainable competitive advantage”, Muchiu Chang,
Engineering Management Conference, 2004. Proceedings. 2004 IEEE
International, Oct. 2004
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1407095
[3] “Quantum computation patent mapping - a strategic view for the information
technique of tomorrow”, Muchiu Chang, Proceedings of ICSSSM '05, 2005
International Conference on Services Systems and Services Management,
June 2005
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1500183
[4] "Imports, exports and trade balance of goods on a balance-of-payments basis,
by country or country grouping“, Statistics Canada
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/gblec02a.htm

The Archived Canadian Patent Competitive Intelligence (November 23, 2010)

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