How Understanding Technology Life Cycle Helps In Patent Portfolio Maintenance?
Shikhar Sahni
R&D Strategy | Open Innovation & Tech Scouting | IP Analysis Expert | Sr. VP at GreyB
Imagine the world where you’d be clicking pictures on your Kodak DSLR and uploading them on Instagram with hashtag #KodakMoment while checking comments on the post on your revolutionary Blackberry. The foldable Nokia Smartphone that you wore on your wrist is still your backup phone because Nokia phones never run out of batteries.
The above would have been a reality and not a mere imagination had these companies paid attention and took steps to analyze the different technology adoption life cycle stages for their technologies.
Had they realized that the technologies they built their empires on were just about to reach the last stage of their technological life cycles, they could have had come up with or invested in alternate technologies, and innovated in the direction.
Think of the countless strategies they could have plotted had they known the fate of the technology they developed. They would have actionable insights on increasing ROI, know-how on taking the technology to the next step, and ease in making decisions on channelizing research investment.
Had they done that, these companies could have continued to reign in the market with a lion’s share in their particular niches. Sadly, they didn’t. As a result, they failed and the majority of them never gets the spotlight anymore. They have met their end.
Someone once said, “The only reason history exists so that you can learn from mistakes of others and don’t repeat them yourselves. “
Well, time to take a lesson.
In this article, I will discuss how analysis of technological life cycle could help you make decisions that you might miss otherwise. And since practice is way better than theory, we will look at some examples to drive the point home.
What Is A Technology Adoption Life Cycle Curve?
Though most of you would be aware of what a technology life cycle is, there are quite a bunch who lack an idea. The former ones can skip to the second next section, while the latter ones in search of an answer have a good 215 words to read.
In simple words, a Technology life cycle describes how a technology during its R&D, Maturity, and declining stage affects profits of a product. It predicts when a new innovation will get adopted, accepted and declined.
What Are The 5 Different Stages Of A Technology Life Cycle?
In general, there are five stages of technological development in the life cycle of any technology. Each stage has its own relevance impacting the profits generated by a product. Let’s take a brief look into each of these stages.
Inclination – This is the stage where a new technology is introduced in the market and hype for its need is created. At this stage, the profits generated from a technology are laggy aka slow-moving. This phase is also popularly known as “bleeding edge”.
Early Adoption – Customers aka early adopters (also known as Visionaries) start adopting the technology. A majority of the shortcomings get eliminated at this stage which leads to increase in trust among customers.
Wide Acceptance – This is the stage where a technology gets accepted by masses. At the same time, a lot of competitive and alternative technologies get developed. This is a stage where profits hit their zenith and then start declining. The newness of a technology starts fading slowly.
Decline – At this stage, sales and profits take a nosedive. An introduction of better alternative technologies makes it obsolete and takes a technology to a stage where further investment in development becomes unprofitable.
New Application Areas – This could be a turning point in the declining phase. This could involve working on incremental improvements such as giving a tech a software update, bumping up the specifications, redesigning it.
It could be through partnering with new innovators to give a new direction to the technology. If the technology finds its application in a new area, it could be saved from touching the horizontal axis of the life cycle.
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How Different Stages Of Technological Development Helps Build Patent Portfolio Strategy?
Let me share an example where we recently worked for a communication giant, let’s call them, CommuG. CommuG had a diverse patent portfolio which was not limited to communication domain solely.
After the analysis of its patent portfolio, we identified that:
- 20%-25% patents in the complete portfolio are related to Virtual Reality,
- 25%-30% patents related to Home Automation,
- 35%-40% patents related to Instant Messaging, and
- 10%-15% patents related to Short Message Service Technology.
Thereafter, we checked where these technological clusters lie in the different stages of a technology lifecycle curve. The analysis revealed the following curve:
Note: The technology cluster and its position on the Technology Life Cycle are only for illustrative purpose. We have not depicted the exact spots and spread of each cluster across the lifecycle plot.
What kind of insights did the exercise reveal? You ask.
Well, below are a few of the valuable ones we discovered after we plotted patent portfolio of CommuG on technological lifecycle curve: