In recent years, there has been a much greater awareness of the important role that patents play in legal, technology and business environments, with high profile patent battles between technology giants playing out in the courts (and the media) on a regular basis. As well as monitoring any infringement on a corporation’s novel ideas, knowing and studying global patent data is also an effective tool to avoid parallel developments and wasted research and development efforts in overcrowded research fields.

With this in mind, Minesoft has designed a suite of patent information products and a global, searchable patent database. Users can easily search, review, analyse and share patent information across a corporation, effectively harness

the knowledge found in patents, gain competitive intelligence and build on the ideas of others to drive innovation forward.

After a scorcher of a summer in 2018, it is no surprise to hear that our cities are getting hotter, the current trend in global temperature cannot be denied, with the earth set to warm by 2 degrees centigrade by the end of this century.

The hottest 10 years on record have all been within the past 15 years, and with denser populations and energy networks, cities suffer worst from the increase due to the heat island effect: The air temperature of a city with 1 million inhabitants can be between one to three degrees centigrade warmer than its surroundings.

Cities look to IP for answers as they feel the heatJames Cooper from Minesoft explores how PatBase and PatBase Analytics V2 can be used to explore a technology area, with a focus on solutions to the current rising temperatures in cities around the globe

Companies and organisations looking for solutions to the rising mercury can and are finding a valuable resource of information in patent literature.

So, how are cities fighting back against the rising temperatures?

Cities around the world have been trialling different methods to tackle the rapidly rising temperatures. In Guiyang, China, city planners studied wind patterns, water bodies and nearby green belts to incorporate ‘wind corridors’ to blow throughout the city, reducing ambient temperatures with no additional cost or maintenance.

As well as working with what is already there, many cities are committing to increasing the amount of green space within their boundaries. In Australia, where ‘extreme temperatures’ is a less relative term than elsewhere in the world, many cities are committing to increasing their tree canopy cover, with Sydney aiming to expand coverage by 50 percent by 2030.

New trees would provide shade to residents and help cool the immediate area via evapotranspiration of water from the leaf surface. An increase in trees also helps to improve air quality and reduce carbon emissions in the local area.

There are many methods used to reduce city temperatures, and in terms of intellectual property there are two core technologies included in the US

Environmental Protection Agency’s five main strategies for dealing with the heat island effect: Cool roofs and cool pavements, both achieved using heat and radiation reflecting coatings.

Traditional black asphalt absorbs much of the sun’s energy that hits it, holding in heat and in some countries becoming too unstable to drive upon in unusually hot weather. Los Angeles, among other cities, is investigating a white coating that can be applied to road surfaces as well as roofs and walkways.

Originally designed to hide spy planes from satellite infrared (IF) camera technologies, the coating has been repurposed, the heat and IF reflective properties being utilised for themselves and not for a secondary purpose such as detection avoidance.

The coating reflects the majority of the sun’s energy and can keep an area up to 5.5 degrees centigrade cooler.

They form part of a scheme to make Los Angeles 1.67 degrees centigrade cooler over the next 20 years.

Analysing the technology area

Starting with a keyword search to look for reflective coatings, class codes for the technology area were identified along with additional keywords used to refine the search criteria. Using PatBase or similar tools allow

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Figure 1: PatBase Analytics V2 Dashboard view for the technology area

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multiple insights to be gained on the topic, showing the key players and jurisdictions involved in leading these technologies forward. Included amongst these results are patents for reflective glass-granule substrates to reflect light, weather resistant coatings designed for use within solar panelling and stealth paint designed to hide spy-craft from IF sensors. An excellent example of a patent describing a technology to solve one problem that can be repurposed as a solution for an entirely different scenario, is the Chinese patent application: CN20181172242 applied for in March this year.

Using the integrated Analytics engine, PatBase Analytics V2, assesses the obtained results from our search, enabling the searcher to retrieve information about the key players within the technology field. To date, the key jurisdictions are the US, the World Intellectual Property Organisation, the European Patent Office, Germany, and China.

Two of the major players in the technology field are US companies (Certainteed Corp and 3M), so it’s not surprising to see the US in top position with 659 families compared to China’s 607.

Figure 2: top 10 jurisdictions by number of families

Figure 3: Top five assignees by jurisdiction (by number of families)

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James is currently a support executive at Minesoft. Having completed his degree in Biomedical science in 2012, James started his career in the Healthcare Sector to support an application to study medicine. He worked at a Centre for the Treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury for 2 years, monitoring patient response to treatment and assessing efficacy of treatment based on patient meta-data in addition to assisting the Healthcare Team and Nursing Staff.

In mid-2015, James joined Minesoft to provide support for Chemical Explorer, and now assists with the company’s marketing, customer relationship management and support services for all products.

Minesoft’s suite of patent solutions make it easy to keep your cool when searching and identifying patents for a range of technologies and processes

Certainteed possess more than twice the patent families in this area as their nearest rival, 3M. It is worth noting however that while Certainteed possesses more families than its competitor, 3M as a multinational is protecting their IP across more of the major jurisdictions, being the only assignee to appear in four of the top five patenting entities across all five primary issuing authorities for this technology.

Nations like China and the US are key players in this market. 2018’s summer notwithstanding, their ambient temperatures have always been on the high side globally, and it is they that will trail-blaze the methods and technologies required to keep city living possible as the heat rises. Germany’s appearance amongst the top five may be in part due to the German government’s continued subsidies for renewable energy technologies. Whilst installation peaked in 2012, the extension of the scheme into 2018 makes Germany a valuable market for solar vendors to operate in for the near future, and reflective

coatings are an important component of many solar energy and heating products.

Minesoft’s suite of patent solutions make it easy to keep your cool when searching and identifying patents for a range of technologies and processes. Companies, academic institutions and governments can gain insight into how others are tackling an issue to help inform their own responses.

With over 60 full text collections, including non-Latin data, PatBase provides access to patent literature generated from key countries around the world.

In just a few minutes, PatBase and integrated PatBase Analytics V2 can be used to identify key players in the space for licensing agreements, locate expired IP that is open for use. Whether you have a practical problem to solve, valuable IP you wish to keep track of or competitors to monitor, Minesoft’s solutions have you covered.

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Speed up your research with access to 106 patenting jurisdictions on one platform.

• Search global patents intuitively and comprehensively• Explore the landscape and turn data into intelligence with integrated Analytics V2• Monitor competitor’s patents with the comprehensive Legal Status Viewer• Identify potential licensing opportunities with Citation Explorer

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