Knowledge of competitor’s patents A few participants knew of particular competitors with patents providing comments including: particular patents and a particular author that I know has already patented “Yes, something and so of course then I would look at other things that they would have done.” (Interviewee 12) have looked up particular as in Thomson J. and big Californian “I … … names.” (Interviewee 1) Two interviewees said that they became aware of competitor’s patents in the context of being part of a company, for example one said: definitely looked at the WARF patents that was very much in the “[W]e … context of setting up our company and trying to work out the relationship with what we could do academically, what we could do commercially and what we could transfer academically to the company.” (Interviewee 3) But the participant took the view that: that is going to be the CEO and the business development guys’ “Ultimately jobs. I mean I will keep in touch with the literature and they will probably be keeping more in touch with the patent landscape.” (Interviewee 3) This is an example of scientists their engagement with patent information ‘buffering’ (further discussed in section 8.4.5). Another interviewee commented that they had previously looked at patents to gauge what competitors might be working on, and planning on working on, in the future: you want to see what art there is and things like that you can “Obviously … gain quite a lot from patents that you wouldn’t otherwise gain from a paper It … is different because you get a sort of feel for what people are really trying to work on, the downstream steps, because they often put in claims specific to this.” (Interviewee 1) This, whilst awareness of the general existence of patents in their field was high amongst the interviewees, their knowledge of particular patents varied greatly.
Knowledge of competitor’s patents A few participants knew of particular competitors with patents providing comments including: “Yes, particular patents and a particular author that I know has already patented something and so of course then I would look at other things that they would have done.” (Interviewee 12) “I have looked up particular … as in Thomson J. … and big Californian names.” (Interviewee 1) Two interviewees said that they became aware of competitor’s patents in the context of being part of a company, for example one said: “[W]e definitely looked at the WARF patents … that was very much in the context of setting up our company and trying to work out the relationship with what we could do academically, what we could do commercially and what we could transfer academically to the company.” (Interviewee 3) But the participant took the view that: “Ultimately that is going to be the CEO and the business development guys’ jobs. I mean I will keep in touch with the literature and they will probably be keeping more in touch with the patent landscape.” (Interviewee 3) This is an example of scientists ‘buffering’ their engagement with patent information (further discussed in section 8.4.5). Another interviewee commented that they had previously looked at patents to gauge what competitors might be working on, and planning on working on, in the future: “Obviously you want to see what art there is and things like that … you can gain quite a lot from patents that you wouldn’t otherwise gain from a paper … It is different because you get a sort of feel for what people are really trying to work on, the downstream steps, because they often put in claims specific to this.” (Interviewee 1) This, whilst awareness of the general existence of patents in their field was high amongst the interviewees, their knowledge of particular patents varied greatly.
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