Tell me more aboutCompetitive Intelligence
We provide patent intelligence, you make better strategic decisions
Budget Management
Portfolio Optimisation
Competitive Intelligence
Cross Licensing
Due Diligence
Benchmarking
Inbound Patent Assertion
Monetisation
Technology Trends
What we do
Strategic patent intelligence
Cipher eliminates the inefficient manual tagging and sorting of patent data by using supervised machine learning. Cipher quickly delivers trusted and reliable patent intelligence, which gives you more time for the strategic decisions that only us, as humans, can make.
“I’m delighted how we’ve implemented Cipher. We’ve reduced 10-year expenses by nearly half by moving from a system where filings were based on headcount growth, to one where we systematically identify weakness in our portfolio, and file where necessary to ensure our patent ‘wall’ is maintained.” Rob Calico, Vice President IP and Litigation, ARM
“Because Cipher is an automated platform that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence, it is able to uncover companies of relevance, that we might never have discovered on our own.” Jared Engstrom, Head of Patent Development, Red Hat
“Cipher has been world class for us. It’s easy to use and it provides very powerful visual representations of what we own and importantly what our competitors have.” Dr Bobby Mukherjee, Chief Counsel, Intellectual Property and Technology Law, BAE Systems plc
“Our issue was how to fit other companies’ portfolios into that same framework that we use and there’s just no other tool other than Cipher that can do that.” Bob Pechman, Chief Intellectual Property Counsel, Seagate Technology
“As a leading technology company we need instant answers to who’s doing what. Cipher helps us navigate complex patent landscapes.” Lucy Wojcik, Head of IP, Ocado
With Cipher you can…
Optimise your portfolio
Ensure you have the right portfolio to meet your strategic patenting objectives.
Gather competitor intelligence
Understand who’s doing what by automating patent to technology mapping.
Model cross licensing
Combine patent and revenue data to determine rational licensing outcomes.
Manage your budget
Justify patent budgets to CFOs and communicate the impact of your investment.
Conduct due diligence
Automate manual reviews for efficient execution of M&A and licensing transactions.
Tackle inbound patent assertion
Be prepared with evidence to create a fast and effective threat assessment.
Benchmark your portfolio
Assess your portfolio in comparison to other owners through your technology lens.
Monetise your portfolio
Identify opportunities to create value through licensing or sale of patent assets.
Predict technology trends
Track today’s new technologies and discover the unknown owners of future disruptive innovation.
Why Cipher
Trained by humans, built by machine to give you independently verified accuracy
“Cipher’s classifiers enable you to understand the patent landscape or analyze a portfolio. Combining expertise in both IP and data science, Cipher provides you with solutions to the strategic problems patent owners face, with quick and accurate results.” Erik Oliver, Richardson Oliver Insights
Access Cipher’s Insights
Read our reportsFAQs
What is strategic patent intelligence?
Strategic patent intelligence is Cipher’s ‘why’. We’ve optimised Cipher’s analysis of patent data to the teams responsible for making strategic patent decisions. Strategic patent intelligence is not only trusted, objective and repeatable, it is actionable.
How to align IP strategy with business strategy?
Communication is critical to aligning your IP strategy to business strategy and any patent strategy you develop too. Many organisations establish an IP steering group with representatives from across the business, with senior stakeholders reporting directly to the board, typically quarterly.
How does Cipher use Machine Learning in its solution?
Cipher has developed proprietary machine learning (ML) across the platform. It uses unsupervised machine learning for clustering and similarity (company analysis) and supervised machine learning for its patent to technology classification. Learn about how Cipher classifies patent data into technology areas using Machine Learning.
What other use cases are there for strategic patent intelligence?
Cipher also helps with due diligence, cross-licensing, pruning, litigation risk assessment and scouting. We also have specific SEP reports in areas such as HEVC. For more information contact us.
Why is Cipher different to patent search software?
Cipher delivers its analysis for strategic decision making without manual intervention. Conventional patent search is designed for technical patent filing and FTO work. Patent search is typically rules-based e.g. Boolean (key words and codes) requiring expert intervention to clean and normalise the data.
How does Cipher help with M&A transactions?
Cipher CEO, Nigel Swycher was a leading IP lawyer in London for over 20 years focussing on the IP aspects of major corporate transactions. The first use case for Cipher was due diligence.
Is Cipher only for patent experts?
No, Cipher is for everyone who makes strategic patent decisions. The user experience and visualisations have been tuned with input from patent leaders to be intuitive and engaging. No patent search experience is required. Knowledge of Boolean strings is a thing of the past.
What datasets are aggregated in Cipher?
Cipher includes global patent data from over 100 patent offices. Cipher also includes patent litigation data (including NPEs), cost data and best in class patent corporate tree.
