Global IP Matrix - Issue 5

The road ahead for
autonomous vehicles:
a patent report
Patent landscape reports give a
snapshot of the patents in a specific
subject area or which cover a type
of technology. Generally taking
one to two weeks to complete, a
landscape report can cover hundreds
or thousands of patent families. The
reports can be used to visualise and
discover existing gaps in relevant
areas, gain competitive intelligence by
understanding the current landscape,
predict where your market is heading
and spot trends in areas of interest
to aid investment. They are a critical
step in research and development as
well as competitive or patent strategy
for any company or institution.
You can execute your landscape search more
efficiently and accurately with PatBase, a highquality,
comprehensive patent search and analysis
platform that uses enhanced data and enables
searchers to conduct complex searches across the
widest full-text collection available.
By Caitlin Kavanagh, Marketing Executive, Minesoft
www.minesoft.com
This generates a broad discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of these type of cars. On the one
hand, all human factors and climate influences can be switched off. However, the human brain identifies and
predicts things that cannot easily be automated, like pedestrians and other obstacles crossing the road. Also,
cars need to be able to drive in both crowded areas like cities and on highways with rather straight forward
traffic; driving a car involves more than just handling the technical equipment in the car, for example, road
safety, navigation, traffic lights, road signs, etc.
Is this a growing area of interest
In the following sections, PatBase Analytics V2 is
used to extract insights and answer the questions
below for the fast-growing technology area of
autonomous vehicles.
• Is this a growing area of interest?
• What are the fields of current interest?
• Who are the key players?
• Where are the key players filing their inventions?
• Who are the most influential leaders in this area?
Driverless cars:
an introduction
Autonomous driving involves the act of propelling
and navigating a vehicle without human input when
travelling from point A to point B. The Department
of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in California has setup
strict regulations for testing driverless cars.
The autonomous vehicles testing regulations were
adopted on 19 May 2014 and became effective from
16 September 2014. Permission has been given to
many car producers like Volkswagen, Mercedes
Benz, Google, Tesla Motors, Bosch, Nissan, GM,
BMW, Honda, Ford, and some others to test
driverless cars.
However, the first fatal accident involving an
autonomous vehicle took place in Williston, Florida
on 7 May 2016 where a Tesla Model S electric car
was engaged in autopilot mode. Shortly after, a
second accident occurred wherein a Google car was
involved.
Most recent 20 years by families, applications & grants
Studying the most recent 20 years by families, applications & grants shows that the driverless cars technology
area is a fast-growing one. The dip in applications can be explained by the 18-month lag between when
patents are applied for and when they are published. In fact, the number of applications has increased almost
exponentially between 2009 and 2017.
This technology area
is continuing to grow
globally, with China
surpassing the US
in 2016. Filings in
Germany, Japan, and the
European Patent Office
have remained pretty
consistent over the past
20 years with a recent
peak in 2016 – 2018
worldwide, as reflected
in this graph.
Most recent 10 years
by CPC group and
number of families
What are the fields of current interest?
14 www.gipmatrix.com