How to create a global landscape report using Cipher classifiers
This feature runs up to 15 classifiers against every patent family with a priority date since 1985 (roughly 45 million patent families). The video below shows you how to generate this type of report.
When creating a Cipher Global Landscape report and applying more than one technology classifier, you will be presented with the following report options on report creation.
Allow Overlapping Technologies (default setting for landscape reports with multiple classifiers)
By default, the option to 'Allow overlapping technologies' will be selected, for landscape reports with multiple classifiers. (please note that in other report types, 'group in mutually exclusive technologies' is the default setting for reports with multiple classifiers applied). In choosing this option, each patent family of your Cipher report, will be accounted for in EVERY classifier category with a score above the 0.5 threshold resulting in duplicate results.
Group in Mutually Exclusive Technologies
In choosing this option, each patent family of your Cipher report, will be accounted for in ONE SINGLE classifier category with the highest score above the 0.5 threshold.
When should I use each option?
Consider the question that you're trying to answer with your Cipher report. If you're using Cipher to compare the number of patent families in your portfolio to your competitors, and reviewing portfolio size or patenting activity, you would likely 'group in mutually exclusive technologies' to avoid double counting of patent families in your report. If you're using Cipher to look into technology trends and to capture all inventions across the classifier technologies selected in your report, you would likely select to 'allow overlapping technologies' in order to ensure that all results are captured and to see which inventions fall across more than one technology classifier.
If running an overlapping report, how can I see which patent families fall into more than one technology classifier?
You can review this within the results of your report by clicking into the underlying data, and in the technology column, these are split by the vertical bar '|' symbol as follows:
