Patinformatics.com 2014 Year in Review

It has been a great year on Patinformatics.com, and I would be remiss if I didn’t start by saying thank you to all of the people who took time out of their busy schedules to read the content that was posted on this site, and shared through my other social media channels.

Instead of simply looking back at the most popular posts on the website for this year in review I thought I would also share with you some of the philosophy behind the overall use of social media on Patinformatics.com. The use of social media by businesses, and individuals alike has been an important reality for sharing ideas for a number of years now, but even with that generally accept principle I thought it was still worth talking about how I specifically use all of the various options to further the goals of Patinformatics, LLC.

As listed on my home page, Patinformatics.com has three stated goals:

1. Promote my consulting business, Patinformatics, LLC
2. Provide a platform, via this blog for the discussion of pressing topics in the fields of patent analytics, and strategy
3. Develop a repository of best practices associated with the development of patent analytics, and strategy

Over the past two years the site has primarily focused on the second and third items, and this is not going to change in 2015, but I am also looking to continue growing my consulting business, which makes all of the other work possible, so there will also be some changes made in 2015 so readers will know that I am available to provide patent landscape, and other patent analysis, and strategy services. These will not be overbearing, or intrusive, but the site will eventually start to look a little different as I begin promoting the services I offer.

Which brings me to the use of social media to achieve these goals. I use the following tools to help spread the word about what is happening in the field of patent analysis and strategy:

• RSS Feeds for the Patinformatics Blog – The blog is used for long form posting, typically 500-1500 words in length where the authors can thoroughly explore ideas, lessons, and new analysis related topics. Readers can subscribe to the feed using any RSS service, or by clicking on the RSS button under Contact Us on the top right side of every page on this site. Readers can also get new posts sent to them by email by adding their email address to the Subscribe form right under the Recent Posts section, and above the Latest Tweets. Some people are nervous about providing email addresses, but it is the best way to make sure you receive every post as soon as they are published. I also have the highest respect for my subscriber and always endeavor to send out useful, spam free information.
• Twitter feed – At only 140 characters Twitter is mostly used to share news about the business of patents, including monetization, important case law, and legislation. Most of the time I am including links to other people’s content, whether they be other blog posts, or published articles. I tweet out my own posts, but the vast majority of the tweets are items that I come across in my daily reading that I think will be of interest to others in this community. Latest tweets can be seen on each page of the website, but readers can also subscribe to my tweets by clicking the Twitter button under Contact Us, or by looking for @atripper on Twitter itself. There is almost no overlap between what I blog about, and what I tweet on, so subscribing to both provides all of the relevant information.
• LinkedIn – most of what gets posted on the blog also gets shared on LinkedIn, but none of the tweets do. A lot of people I know use LinkedIn for all of their posting, including longer posts, and links that they would like to share with their followers. I consider connecting with people on LinkedIn important, and it is a great resource for sharing my historical information, but I don’t see it as a one stop shop for all of my content. This is intentional on my part since I enjoy the freedom, and flexibility that hosting my own blog, and using Twitter provides me. On a personal note I am also not terribly happy with LinkedIn since twice last year they prevented me from posting new content to groups for a week since they said I was posting excessively. I have only ever posted useful content, which has generally been well received, so I didn’t really appreciate being told I was a spammer. Some of you may have noticed that I have all but stopped sharing my posts in LinkedIn groups, and that is the primary reason why. I will likely pick a small number of groups to share with in 2015, and I would like to start some interactive discussions on patent analysis best practices next year, but for the most part I have cut back on my involvement with LinkedIn.
• SlideShare – I give a reasonable number of presentations at various conferences, and while generally my slides are available from these sites I also like having all of my content in one place. I generally provide them under the Presentations sections of this site, but I store them on SlideShare as another means of getting this content out to people.
• Google+ – While I mention this under Contact Us, and place my contact information at the bottom of each post I generally don’t use this service that often. While I have nearly 2,000 followers on Twitter and more than 1,000 connections on LinkedIn I have a fraction of this on Google+, and don’t have any real intention of growing that following. Believe it or not, there is something to be said about being spread too thin on social media.

So, as readers can see there is an intentionality about how each of the services are used to promote the goals of Patinformatics, LLC. Overall, the objective is to share interesting ideas, and increase discussion on the importance of patents, analytics, and strategy to technically focused organizations. I would like to believe that the combination of these services is helping achieve those objectives.

With that lets look at how I performed against these objectives with the tools I chose to use:

The top ten posts from 2014 on the Patinformatics.com are:

Yummie Tummie vs Spanx Round Two – Yummie Tummie Files Design Patent Infringement Lawsuit

Revisiting an Old Standard – 80% of Technical Information is Found Only in Patents

Patent Strategy Lesson: Shaping Patent Claims to Match Changing Markets

Machine Learning in Patent Analytics – Part 3: Spatial Concept Maps for Exploring Large Domains

Machine Learning in Patent Analytics – Part 1: Clustering, Classification, and Spatial Concept Maps, Oh My!

Next Generation (NG) IP and R&D Dashboard – A Joint Development by Evalueserve and Treparel

Machine Learning in Patent Analytics – Part 2: Binary Classification for Prioritizing Search Results

Engaging Senior Management in Patent Strategy Discussions – Article from IAM Magazine Available for Download

Text Comparison Tools for Assisting with Patent Claims Analysis

First Look – New STN – Big Data Creates Chemistry Without Limits‍

According to WordPress Patinformatics.com was visited a little more that 40,000 times in 2014. This is a slight increase over 2013 even though there were far fewer posts published, and I stopped posting links to my posts to the LinkedIn groups I subscribe to. I am very happy with these results, and am especially pleased that a number of these top ten posts are actually ones that were published in 2013. This tells me that the goal of developing a repository of best practice is largely finding success.

I am also proud to share that 16,000 users from 132 countries viewed this site. These are pretty amazing number as far as I’m concerned, and while the true giants of patent related blogging don’t have anything to worry about I would like to think that I am serving the needs of my little designated slice of the patent universe. These are both also increases from last year.

Moving to Twitter it is fascinating to think that over the past four months my twitter feed has received over 86,000 impressions. On average each of my tweets gets 360 impressions, are clicked on about 20% of the time, and generated over 2,000 interactions from users. This is the first time I have ever looked at my twitter statistics, even though I have been using the service for years, and it is gratifying to see how many people find the links I send informative. Here is a list of the top tweets from my feed for the last four months:

My opinion, in 2024 more businesses will understand that “innovation w/out protection is philanthropy” so says a former colleague #picon2014

Thank you @EPOorg for a successful #picon2014 ! We appreciate the importance you put on #patent info & the professionals that work with it

Data to drive European #patent strategy – @aistemos – thanks for hat tip to my #picon2014 presentation @epoorg https://t.co/PLGHi55cjN

Could Ebola vaccine delay be due to an intellectual property spat? #patent for treatment licensed to others http://t.co/t0GNnbPKIa

Representatives from 48 countries participating in the @EPOorg #patent information conference, pretty amazing! #picon2014

Rockstar’s $188M Settlement with Cisco Revives #Patent Licensing | @IP CloseUp http://t.co/mvoUc4GHZy

IP finance: #Patents as an “asset”; patents as an “asset class” #patent – interesting perspective on subject http://t.co/J78RTAguoi

#patent information professionals are artists who perform an important role @cepiug President #picon2014

Adapting #patent information to the global needs – @EPOorg #piconf2014 http://t.co/QtovaECNCx

Susanne Hantos providing an excellent overview of methods for identifying the owner of a #patent document #picon2014

The majority of these are associated with the EPO Patent Information Conference I attended in November, and demonstrates the importance of having a user with a huge number of followers retweet your material. Beyond the #picon2014 tweets we can also see that tweets on the monetization of patent assets are also very popular. Overall, I am also seeing a fairly large number of retweets, and favorites from my posts so the use of Twitter also seems to be progressing the goals I set for Patinformatics.

Finally, I can also see the statistics associated with the presentations I have posted on SlideShare. Overall, the twelve presentations I put up on the site have generated more than 10,000 views. This is also a modest number of views when compared with true heavy hitters, but considering the size of the audience, and the nature of what I am posting I am pleased that many people are interested in these materials. The top presentations to date are:

The Peculiar Searching Habits of the North American Patent Searcher

Recent Trends in the Use and Market for Patent Information in the United States

What to Look for When Using US Public PAIR and Other Lessons from Blogging Working with US Examiner Citations

Surviving the UPcoming Personal Fitness Band Patent Wars

A Sea Change is Coming to Patent Analytics – Brought to You by Big Data

Harnessing the Power of Patent Analytics A Policy Maker’s Perspective

Using Patent Analytics to Engage Senior Management in Corporate Strategy

The top presentations happened to be the oldest, in this case, but I am happy to see that the fitness band case study has jumped up the list even though it is one of the newer presentations.

Once again, thank you to all of the readers, and contributors who joined me on this journey in 2014. It has been an honor to interact with many of you, and I am looking forward to sharing some additional opportunities for working with even more of you in 2015. I will be making some announcements about some exciting new develops in the next few weeks, and I hope many of you will be able to take advantage of some of the new projects I am working on.