Patent and technology intelligence turns patent data into engineering and business decisions. It maps who holds which rights in a technology field, how those positions developed over time, and where unprotected white space remains. The output is not a document list but an interpreted picture: the players, the blocked paths, and the room your development still has.
The typical starting point
A development project is about to start, or an investment decision is pending, and the intellectual property situation is unclear. Nobody wants to discover after two years of engineering that a competitor holds a blocking patent — or to abandon a promising direction because of a patent that, on closer reading, does not actually apply.
Questions we answer
- Who holds the relevant patents in this technology field, and how strong are those positions?
- Where is the white space — technical directions nobody has protected yet?
- Does an existing patent block our intended solution, or can we design around it?
- How has the patent activity of a specific competitor developed over recent years?
- Which technologies are being filed intensively right now, and what does that signal?
- Is licensing a realistic alternative to developing our own solution?
How we work
- Define the fieldTogether with your engineers we delimit the technology field, the relevant classifications and the jurisdictions that matter for your market.
- Systematic searchPatent families are retrieved across the relevant offices, deduplicated and screened for actual technical relevance.
- Map the landscapeFindings are structured by holder, technical approach, filing period and jurisdiction to make the competitive picture visible.
- InterpretEngineers read the relevant claims and assess what they genuinely cover — the step that separates a patent list from patent intelligence.
- Derive optionsYou receive the resulting picture with concrete options: design-around routes, licensing candidates, or unprotected directions worth pursuing.
Sources and data we use
- Patent families from EPO, DPMA, USPTO, WIPO and further national offices
- Legal status and family data, including grants, oppositions and lapses
- Scientific literature and conference proceedings as prior art context
- Technical standards and standard-essential patent declarations
- Company disclosures, product documentation and trade-fair findings
What we assess
- Patent holders and portfolio strength
- Technical clusters and filing trends over time
- Geographic coverage by jurisdiction
- White space and unprotected directions
- Legal status and remaining term
- Design-around and licensing options
What you receive
- Patent landscape structured by holder, technology cluster and jurisdiction
- Interpretation of the claims that matter for your specific project
- White-space assessment with the technical directions still open
- Competitor filing profiles over time
- Concrete options: design around, license, or proceed
- Full source documentation with publication numbers for every finding
Who this is for
R&D and engineering leadership, IP and patent departments, technology and innovation managers, and corporate development teams preparing an investment or acquisition decision.
Industries
- Manufacturing
- Automotive & Mobility
- Robotics & Automation
- Chemicals & Advanced Materials
- Renewable Energy & Energy Storage
How this differs from a consultancy or a database
| thinver | Classic consultancy | Data platform / database | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Focus | Engineering consequences of the IP situation | Legal validity and enforceability | Data retrieval and visualisation |
| Who interprets | Engineers with industry background | Patent attorneys | Nobody — you do |
| Typical output | Decision options for the development team | Legal opinion | Charts and exports |
| Scope | Patents plus market and supplier context | Patents in legal isolation | Patent data only |
| Complements | Works alongside your patent attorney | Focused on legal risk | Requires interpretation |
Frequently asked questions
Is this the same as a freedom-to-operate opinion?
No. We provide the technical and strategic picture: who holds what, which claims are relevant, and which routes remain open. A legally binding freedom-to-operate opinion is issued by a patent attorney. Our analysis prepares that step efficiently and is frequently used as its input.
Which patent offices do you cover?
Coverage is set by your market. In most industrial projects this means the European Patent Office, the German Patent and Trade Mark Office, the United States Patent and Trademark Office and WIPO, extended by national offices such as China or Japan where the technology field or the competition requires it.
How current is the data?
Patent applications are published eighteen months after their priority date. That publication gap is inherent to the patent system and applies to every provider. We state it explicitly in every landscape, because a very recent competitor filing may not yet be visible.
What does a patent landscape cost?
Cost depends on the breadth of the technology field, the number of jurisdictions and the depth of claim interpretation required. We scope the project after the briefing and quote a fixed price before starting, so there is no open-ended research budget.
Do you also work with our patent attorney?
Yes, and that is the usual arrangement. We deliver the technical landscape and the engineering interpretation; your attorney handles legal assessment and filing strategy. The division of labour keeps both sides efficient.