Open Password – Monday February 14, 2022
#1029
Leipzig Book Fair – Leipzig reads – Corona – Hybrid formats – Book companies – Small and medium-sized publishers – Rainer Moritz – Frankfurter Allgemeine
Outsell – Patent Research Solutions – Customer Needs – Patent Intelligence Tools – Commoditization of Data – Curating, Summarizing and Organizing Data – Analytics, Visualizations and Workflow Tools – Automated AI Systems – Pain Points – UX Design – Development of Analytics and Insights – Collaboration Tools – Patent Research Platforms – Database Coverage – USPTO – Google Patents – WIPO Patentscope – European Patent Office – Brand Awareness – Broad Coverage and Features – Don’t Overlook Free Competitors – Improve User Experience Design
Knowledge exchange – Hybrid workplace – Anton Bollen – TechSmith – Sharp Business Systems – Corona – Digitization boost – Self-management of tasks – Self-care in the home office – Learning library – Peer-to-peer learning – Learning culture – Informal videos – Virtual proximity and connection – Software Trends – Complexity – Security Requirements – Edward Lenssen – EBSCO – Veterinary Source
- On the provisional end of the Leipzig Book Fair:
Literature needed this fair, corporations didn’t want to come
- Title
Outsell’s February Contribution: Patent Research Solutions Survey 2022:
Customer Needs – By Hugh Logue
III.
Knowledge sharing in the hybrid workplace: The three most important trends for 2022
Software trends 2022: Increasing complexity and higher security requirements
- EBSCO: With Veterinary Source
At the temporary end
of the Leipzig Book Fair
Literature needed this fair,
corporations didn’t want to come
“In the mid-1990s, people in the West saw no compelling reason to hold on to the Leipzig Book Fair. Why did the controllers at the big publishers back then say, does Germany need a second book fair? …What significantly changed the mood in the publishing houses was the ever-growing reading festival “Leipzig reads” – which offered countless authors an opportunity to appear and attracted an enthusiastic audience. …
But as the third cancellation of the Leipzig Book Fair in a row shows, the evil spirits of the past were not really dead. … People are hiding behind the corona pandemic, defending economic arguments and speculating that hybrid formats will replace a trade fair meeting with real ones Make people superfluous anyway. …
The power of corporations has brought the trade fair management to its knees, to the detriment of the small and medium-sized publishers for whom Leipzig is particularly important. … Literature would have needed this fair like never before. It seems more than questionable whether the Leipzig Book Fair will ever exist again as a serious industry event.”
From: Rainer Moritz, Evil spirits in standby mode – Leipzig’s book fair has worked hard to earn the respect of the industry. Do old reservations play a role in their rejection?, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 11th
Outsell’s February Contribution
Patent Research Solutions Survey 2022:
Customer Needs
By Hugh Logue – Director & Lead Analyst
Hugh Logue
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Why This Market
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Patent research solutions have improved considerably in recent years thanks to investment from providers in this market. Yet Outsell’s research shows that customers’ needs are still not being fully met, and features that differentiated providers’ products three years ago are now just table stakes.
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Methodology
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Outsell defines patent research and analytics platforms as online applications and
software that enable the research and analysis of information related to patents, scientific and technical literature, and “prior art”, ie, evidence of existing public knowledge of a key feature of a patent before it what granted. This segment also includes patent intelligence tools that provide users with insights derived from patent and related data.
To understand the demands and needs of patent research solution buyers, Outsellpolled 259 professionals with responsibility for the management of patent research solutions within their organizations between November 23 and 26, 2021. Respondents resided in one of the following countries: Australia, Canada, China, France , Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom, or the United States. We excluded anyone who said they did not have management responsibilities for research within their organizations or who were not familiar with patent research solutions.
What follows is Outsell’s third of four analysis pieces on buyers of patent research solutions based on our survey. This piece looks at buyers’ needs and their perceptions of patent research solutions available in the market.
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Key Findings
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The commoditization of data in recent years has had a massive effect on the patent
research solutions market, which is essentially an intermediary between free public data and patent researchers. In the past, the value was in curating, summarizing, and organizing data to make it easily accessible. Now, much of this work can be done by automated AI systems and is widely available for free online.
In response, providers in this market have invested in analytics, visualizations, and workflow tools. Outsell’s findings validate these investments, as a series of survey responses shows that customers highly value patent research offerings and don’t mind paying for them. Yet underneath it all is still the sleeping threat that almost three-quarters of customers regularly use free patent research tools. If everyone were well, why would so many organizations that already pay so much for commercial patent research tools still use free tools?
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Customers Still Struggling with Research Fundamentals
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Outsell asked patent research customers about the biggest challenges theirorganizations face when conducting patent research. The aim was to discover the biggest customer pain points when conducting patent research and enable solution providers to make improvements to their products accordingly. Respondents’ three biggest challenges when conducting patent research were “development of analytics and insights” (21%), “formulating search queries” (16%), and “navigating the research platform” (16%). The latter two challenges suggest deficiencies in the UX design of patent research platforms. The UX design needs to make it easy to formulate a search, but users too often need to know the information in the search results to conduct the search, which goes against the purpose of a research platform. Overall, 64% of respondents had experienced some challenges with one or more functions of patent research platforms, which is particularly damning given how much investment and work has gone into improving UX design in recent years.
The biggest challenge, “development of analytics and insights”, presents an opportunity for patent research providers to invest further in their analytics and automation tools. The market leaders have been making improvements to their data visualization and analytics tools for a number of years. While Outsell’s research validates the need for this investment, clearly, the leaders need to improve these further because customers are still finding this task a challenge.
Question: What is the biggest challenge when conducting patent research?
(Responses: 259)
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Customers Want the Maximum Number of Patent Databases.
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Outsell asked the buyers of patent research solutions what their organizations value
most about patent research resources. The purpose of this question was to help patent research providers to identify where they need to focus on product to maintain customer satisfaction, ensure that they include their features in their product marketing, and know where to invest if they don’t offer these features.
Overall, the responses were fairly evenly split, especially when accounting for the
survey’s margin of error of seven percentage points. However, the top three most valued patent research attributes among respondents were “large number of patent authorities and databases” (14.1%), “advanced search and filtering tools” (13%), and “functionality relevant to my industry / specific use-cases” (12.7%).
These findings show that customers have a need for a broad range of features, tools,
and data. Patent providers have also significantly improved collaboration tools in recent years, and it might be expected that with increases to home-working during the pandemic that features that support collaborating with colleagues would be in high demand. However, showed less interest in these types of features underlining the need for providers to prioritize getting the fundamentals of patent research platforms right.
Question: What does your organization value most about a patent research resource? (Responses: 259)
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Overwhelming Preference for Broad Coverage
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Outsell asked buyers of patent research solutions what single issue would be their
primary reason for switching patent research platform providers. The aim of this question was to identify the single most important aspect that might make or break a
sale, helping patent research providers position their sales pitches, marketing, and
product development accordingly.
Once again, data was at the forefront of customers’ minds, with 48% of respondents selecting “better database coverage” as the most likely driver to make them switch patent research platform providers. This was well ahead of ease of use (26%) and significantly cheaper price (9%). As Figure 3 shows, neither faster speed (9%) nor trust in brand (8%) were as important to customers as better data coverage, which may be a concern for providers with long-established brands. Bottom line: build out and tout coverage to resonate with the market today.
Figure 3: Customers’ Biggest Reason for Switching Providers
Question: What single attribute would be your primary reason for switching patent research platform providers? (Responses: 259)
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Almost Three-Quarters of Respondents Use Free Tools.
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Outsell asked customers whether their organizations used free patent research tools,
with the goal of gauging whether this could impact commercial demand.
Free tools are popular among patent research buyers: 73% of respondents stated that their organizations use free tools, while 22% didn’t, and 5% of respondents didn’t know.Given that some customers stated in the earlier questions that they had issues with certain aspects of patent research solutions, providers need to be vigilant against the threat of free offerings in this market.
Figure 4: Usage of Free Patent Research Solutions
Question: Does your organization use free patent research tools? (Responses: 259)
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Google Patents Is a Sleeping Giant.
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Next, Outsell asked those respondents who stated that their organizations use freepatent research resources to identify which ones they use regularly. The aim was to discover which free patent research resources are used most in the market, enabling providers to understand whom their free competitors are in the market and position their sales and marketing activities accordingly.
When analyzing free product usage, it is worth noting that respondents use more than one. Respondents’ three most common free subscriptions were the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database (66%), Google Patents (61%), and WIPOPatentscope (53%).
As Figure 5 shows, many of the most used free patent tools are provided by governmental bodies such as USPTO, WIPO, and the European Patent Office. These free tools represent a limited threat to commercial patent solutions, as they will likely invest less in product innovation. However, providers will be concerned about the popularity of Google Patents, which could disrupt the market if it found new motivation to do so.
Figure 5: Most Used Free Patent Research Solutions
Q: Which free patent research tools do you or your organization use regularly?
(Responses: 190)
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Implications
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Outsell’s findings show that the clear focus of respondents across the survey questions is “breadth of data coverage”. While most day-to-day patent research users are unlikely to need more obscure datasets, customers appear to want the reassurance that they’ve searched across as many datasets as possible so that nothing will pop up further down the road because they were unable to check a particular dataset. In the patent research space, especially with freedom-to-operate searches, this is a critical need.
In Outsell’s first analysis piece in this series on buyers of patent research solutions,Outsell discovered that In the coming 12 months, 82% of respondents expected budgets for patent research platforms to increase. In the second piece, we identified that most customers rated the value of their subscriptions as “excellent”. Now, in this third piece, we find only 3% of respondents stating that their organizations most valued the “low price” of their patent research solution, and only 9% would switch to a different provider if it were cheaper. While the prospect of 9% of customers potentially switching to a cheaper competitor is serious, overall, this market is not too price-sensitive, and Outsell’s findings show that most customers would accept modest price increases.
The least likely reason for customers to change providers was trusting a competitor’s
brand more, with only 8% of respondents selecting this option when asked what single attribute would make them switch. This is good news for recent market entrants, of which there are many, who have little brand awareness in the market. Essentially, if a provider can provide access to the most patent databases with the necessary tools, customers don’t seem to care too much about whether they trust the brand. This is bad news for established market providers, some of whom may have become complacent in falsely believing that their long-established brands are valued more by customers than they are.
Finally, it’s clear that many providers in this market still need to focus on the basics and getting the user experience design right. That 64% of respondents had experienced some challenge with one or more functions of patent research platforms clearly indicates a problem that needs further investigation.
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Essential Actions
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Outsell’s findings show that customers in this market value current offerings and mayeven accept modest price increases. However, this must be balanced against the fact that almost three-quarters of customers regularly use free patent research solutions.While providers in this market need to extract as much revenue from their customers as possible, they also need to invest in improving their products so that they are miles apart from their free competitors.
With that in mind, Outsell recommends the following actions.
Broad coverage and features . Outsell’s findings show that there’s demand for a broad range of features, data, and tools. Customers are clear that they want as many databases as possible, and this is the most likely driver to make them switch patent research platform providers. However, they also evenly split when it came to which attributes they valued most. When they don’t have the necessary data, they have no worries about turning to free research tools. Patent research providers that want to retain their customers need to ensure that they can offer something for everyone.
Don’t Overlook Free Competitors . The drive for tech companies to exploit as many data sources as possible with increased computer power has resulted in patent data becoming commoditized — it is now widely available for free everywhere. Almost three-quarters of patent research solution customers now regularly use free offerings. Providers need to see these free providers as a threat: they are no longer just “good enough” competitors — in some instances, they may be better than their commercial equivalents, especially when they are backed by Google’s search expertise. Providers need to invest in automating higher value patent tasks and focus less on commoditized data offerings.
Improve user experience design. Getting the fundamentals of UX design right is critical, and Outsell’s research shows that providers clearly have room to improve on this front. The UX experience in many patent research platforms assumes that users know specialist terminology that may not be obvious to novice researchers. Users need different ways of searching in addition to a daunting blank search box which requires a degree of knowledge of the end results before the search. Instead, providers need to explore search onboarding tools that guide users on what to search for to get the best results.
The 3 most important trends for 2022
Knowledge sharing in the hybrid workplace
By Anton Bollen, Customer & Market Strategist Europe at TechSmith
Anton Bollen, TechSmith
In the last two years, collaboration and communication among employees has shifted primarily to the digital space. Collaboration platforms make it easier to work together at a distance. But not all companies have done enough here: According to a study by Sharp Business Systems, 40 percent of office workers would like their employer to provide more exchange and training opportunities so that they can acquire new knowledge and skills even from a distance. The three most important trends for 2022:
- Upskilling: New skills for the hybrid working world. Upskilling in the narrower sense aims to develop new skills within the current or a similar role. With the pandemic-related surge in digitalization, this topic has become even more important in recent months, especially in the office environment. New ways of working and new technologies require new skills and knowledge that employees must gradually acquire. It’s not just about the skilled use of digital technologies for efficient, virtual work, but also about self-management of tasks and self-care in the home office.
Companies are faced with the task of identifying skills gaps in these areas among their employees and supporting them with low-threshold, pragmatic offers. These include, for example, regular short learning units on specific topics as well as moderated, informal exchange via collaboration platforms, digital instructions, video tutorials and material collections, set up in a central location as a “learning library”.
- Peer-to-peer learning: Actively involve employees. Employees have always exchanged their knowledge with each other in their everyday work, looked over each other’s shoulders when they had questions and learned from each other in this way. In order for this exchange to be maintained as well as possible digitally, companies must establish a new learning culture in which employees are integrated even more than before and encouraged to share their own specialist knowledge with colleagues in a way that is suitable for remote use – for example through specially created instructions or video clips.
To make this possible, they need access to uncomplicated collaboration platforms as well as visual tools and aids that make it easy to capture and share their own knowledge on the screen. In addition, clear guidelines and examples for design are helpful to make it easier for “newbies” in the area to get started.
- The New Pragmatism: Informal Videos. The popularity of learning videos in professional environments has increased significantly in recent years. What is new is that in the course of hybrid working models, employees themselves are increasingly becoming producers of learning videos, for example by carrying out steps to install software on their own screen and making the instructions available to their colleagues using a simple video recording.
Informal videos are also suitable for getting the team in the mood for a new project or conveying important innovations. Such videos often consist of a simple recording of a presentation, together with the image of the speaker in the camera. The personal component in such a video increases the engagement of the viewer. And: In contrast to an email, a video can create virtual closeness and connection, which is real added value in times of remote work.
Software trends 2022
Increasing complexity and
higher security requirements
(Beech IT) Increasing complexity and increased security requirements are among the key trends in the software industry in 2022. This emerges from a current survey of 100 IT specialists by the software manufacturer Beech IT. According to this, 96 percent of experts expect increasingly complicated computer programs; 98 percent warn that the software needs to be better protected against cyber attacks.
Further trends mentioned for 2022 and beyond are: agile software development (68 percent), AI-assisted development (67 percent), extremely high scalability (66 percent), rapid prototyping & innovation (65 percent), high-performance code (59 percent) , Platform-as-a-Service (57 percent), Software-as-a-Service (52 percent), Dual Speed Development (52 percent), Enterprise Integration of Content Management Systems (47 percent), Lean Software Development ( 42 percent), Typo3 standardization (41 percent), generic software development (39 percent), continuous integration & delivery (39 percent), web apps (38 percent), integrated CMS/CRM/shop/PIM/intranet development (37 percent), software development with design sprints (34 percent), stronger connection between backend/website/app (32 percent) and function-as-a-service (31 percent).
“It is becoming increasingly difficult, even for corporations with large IT departments, to master the multitude of trends in software development,” says Edward Lenssen, CEO of Beech IT. “Companies should quickly secure external programming capacity in order to take into account the growing importance for their competitiveness.”
EBSCO
With Veterinary Source
EBSCO Information Services has released a new full-text resource to meet the research needs of veterinarians, veterinarians, veterinary technicians and veterinary science students. Veterinary Source covers all aspects of veterinary medicine and provides access to research from around the world on the prevention, control, diagnosis and treatment of disease and injury in animals.
With more than 250 full-text scientific journals and magazines related to veterinary medicine, Veterinary Source is an essential resource for studying veterinary science.
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