Prospect for New Clients

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1 Derwent Innovation Blueprint for Success Business Development and Prospecting for Law Firms How can I spend less time prospecting and identifying potential new clients for my law firm? Do our existing clients send us all their intellectual property work? Do our clients use other outside counsel? Derwent Innovation makes it easy to identify potential new clients based on assignee or inventor address information. Robust attorney/agent data identifies which outside counsel patent filing entities use, which can help you determine if your clients engage other outside counsel for intellectual property work. Prospect for New Clients Easily get exceptional search results with Expert search The following search strategies rely on assignee/applicant address data, which is only available in Expert search. These instructions and screen shots provide easy to follow instructions for all Derwent Innovation users, regardless of your search experience. In general, the format used to enter an expert search query is: XXXX = (search term). Each query must have a 2-4-character field code (XXXX), a comparison operator (=), and search terms surrounded by parentheses. You can add additional search terms by adding a Boolean operator (AND, OR, NOT) after the closing parentheses, then adding another search field and term (including tag, operator, and parentheses). Each search query must end with a semicolon (;). Note that address information may not always be available and these strategies depend upon the availability of such information. Identify patent assignees from address information: US States 1. From the Dashboard, click Patents, then click the Expert tab 2. Click the Change collection clink and select US Grants, US Apps, and DWPI 3. Select the Assignee/Applicant Address subfield (PAOD) 4. Add parentheses and the states you want to research Tip: Use the OR operator to search multiple states Example PAOD=(WI) AND DP>=( ); This searches for patent assignees in the state of Wisconsin. Publication Date (DP) limits the query to documents published after January 1, 2016 (>=). Tip: You can also search Inventor address information for US state or ZIP code information with Inventor Address (INAD).

2 Business Development and Prospecting for Law Firms 2 Identify patent assignees from address information: US ZIP Codes Identify foreign companies filing patents in the US Searches by US ZIP Code, instead of US state, allow greater precision with your query. 1. Use the Assignee/Applicant Address field (PAOD) 2. Instead of a state, enter in a ZIP code or the first three numbers of a ZIP code (regional identifier) with the? (wildcard characters) as the 4 th or 5 th numbers 3. Click Search In the example shown, more than 500 patents are found from a variety of Assignees. If we change the query to PAOD=(606??) to expand the geographic range covered by our query more than 48,000 patents are found. As a law firm you may already, or perhaps would like to, act as a correspondent for foreign based entities filing at the United States Patent Office. This strategy uses the Assignee/Applicant Original Country (PAOC) field to help you quickly and easily identify those companies. 1. Select the Expert tab on the Patent Search page 2. Click the Change Collections link, select All collections, and click OK 3. Select Assignee/Applicant Original Country (PAOC) from the field list 4. Enter the two-character country code for the foreign jurisdiction of interest 5. Select the Country Code (CC) field and type in US. Optional: date restrict the search. Click Search In the example shown, we identify companies from Japan whole filed patents in the US that published after January 1, 2016.

3 Business Development and Prospecting for Law Firms 3 Review Results Dashboard to identify potential clients The Results Dashboard makes it easy to see the top assignees in your search results. Select the Assignee filter to review the top 10 or 20 assignees, then click to enlarge the chart Click the chart title to optionally rename it Optionally drag and drop items together on the chart to merge related assignees for cleaner analysis Click to save the chart as a PNG file Select any item on the chart (merged or unmerged) and click Filter Results to see matching documents The chart to the left shows the search results from the Patent Assignee Original Country search. Here we see a list of Japan-based assignees filing US patents. Expand Your List of Prospects with a Custom List Chart A Custom List Chart is helpful if you want to see more data values beyond the Top 20 available in either the Results Dashboard or Bar Charts. 1. Run Search 2. Click Analyze, Charts 3. Click List under Create Custom Chart 4. Click Primary Field to Analyze and select Assignee/Applicant 5. Click Number of Items for Primary Field and select Top Click Secondary Field to Analyze and select Publication Year 7. Click Number of Items for Primary Field and select Top 5 or Top Click View Chart You can save the List Chart as a chart template. Click Save, Template, enter a Name for the template, and click Save. When you create a chart in the future, click the Your Saved Templates tab to apply the template.

4 Business Development and Prospecting for Law Firms 4 Investigate a prospect with the Results Dashboard The Results Dashboard provides instant, visual analysis of your results. You can identify top inventors, assignees, highly cited patents, or jurisdictions just to name a few. The Results Dashboard is also lets you filter your results. 1. Select the assignee you want to analyze in the Results Dashboard and 2. Click Filter Results You can also save any Results Dashboard image by clicking on the camera icon in the top right as a PNG file or merge and relabel groups by simply dragging and dropping them together. Identify which law firms a client or prospect uses A custom stacked bar chart helps you see which law firms your client uses (in addition to you) or the law firms used by a prospect. To analyze the law firms for an assignee: 1. Select the assignee you want to analyze in the Results Dashboard and click Filter Results (see above) 2. Click Analyze, Charts 3. Click Vertical Stacked Bar under Create Custom Chart 4. Click Primary Field to Analyze and select Attorney/Agent 5. Click Secondary Field to Analyze and select Publication Year 6. Click View Chart You can save the Attorney-Agent/Correspondent chart as a template to quickly analyze other assignees. Click Save, Template, enter a Name for the template, and click Save. When you create a chart, click the Your Saved Templates tab to apply the template.

5 Business Development and Prospecting for Law Firms 5 Research Your Own or Competitor Firm Clients As a law firm, it is important to ensure that you receive as much work from your client as possible. Derwent Innovation makes it easy to identify which law firms your client uses, or, alternatively, identify which firms a potential client uses. Research your client with Attorney-Agent/Correspondent 1. On the Fielded patent search from, select the Attorney-Agent/Correspondent field 2. Click the Change collections link and select the authorities you want to search Tip: Attorney-Agent/Correspondent data also occurs outside the US, so consider searching All collections 3. Enter in a law firm or attorney/agent and click Search 4. Review the information with Results Dashboard Assignee/Applicant field (see above). Alternative Scenario: Instead of searching your own law firm, consider searching a competitor law firm to find out who are their top clients. Note: You may need to access your Search preferences and add Attorney/Agent Correspondent to your list of available search fields. Create a chart to identify new or lost clients Charts help you analyze your results. For example, you can see if new clients appear or disappear from a law firm s portfolio or identify other trends. To create the chart: 1. Click Analyze, Charts 2. Click the Top Assignees by Year chart on the Assignees tab

6 Business Development and Prospecting for Law Firms 6 Examine and investigate the chart for insight The stacked bar chart you create shows a law firm s clients for the past ten years. Review the chart to see: Trends in the number of patent filings Long time or consistent clients New clients Lost or inactive clients In this example, the law firm has an upward filing trend. Bosch and Milwaukee Electric appear to be long term clients. The firm acquired Sony as a client in 2015, but lost Ingersoll Rand. Note that charts are interactive. Click any particular bar, pie slice or figure to see the relevant patent records in a result set. Tip: Click the Edit link in the menu to customize the chart. You can optionally add additional years or attorneyagent data, rename the chart, or modify the colors. Learn More with these Additional Resources Quickly Review Your Results: Results Dashboard Analyze and Report on Your Results Focus Your Results Assignee Searching Quick Reference Derwent Innovation Tips & Tricks o o How to Search for Top Patenting Companies in a Particular Country Using the New Results Dashboard