Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard of the latest craze in the world of toys—the fidget spinner, a gadget that looks like a tiny ceiling fan and reportedly alleviates feelings of anxiety or restlessness in its users.

Patent information can assist in critical business decisions, including mergers and acquisitions, that drive your corporate strategy. To obtain this information, you must perform diligent patent analysis, which can then provide the data you need to make your decisions.

The typical enterprise organization can hold thousands of patents, with dozens added each year. This intellectual property has the power to produce revenue for the company, create barriers to entry for competitors, and mitigate risks from other patent holders. Of course, patents also give the holder a temporary monopoly, during which time they can overtake competitors and gain tremendous market share.

Innovation, without insight, is essentially impossible. And when you’re in a constantly evolving industry, insight into your competitors’ IP and patents can prove invaluable when you’re trying to innovate within your own company.

Borders booksellers. Yahoo. MySpace. Blackberry.

It’s true that spontaneous innovation often results in revolutionary ideas. Without freedom to brainstorm, the wheel, the car, Internet calling, digital cameras, and Netflix might not exist. This is often where truly disruptive ideas emerge—ideas that could change the face of business. 

We see it all too often: A major corporation moves forward in their decision to acquire a company for their intellectual property and then investigates the IP involved. Because this is simply the way acquisitions seem to occur, the process has become almost predictable. However, there are so many different potential outcomes to an acquisition decision, and all of these outcomes can be determined by patent analysis.

How many companies in the past probably wished they’d had a crystal ball to tell them what was coming? We’ve already talked about Blockbuster and how they might have weathered the Netflix storm with a little bit of forewarning. What about Kodak? Wouldn’t a session with a psychic have changed the course of history for the film giant?

We’ve discussed in several articles why your IP intelligence should come at the forefront of innovation. We’ve talked about why IP intelligence is a necessary part of your corporate strategy. We looked at reasons to keep IP intelligence within the business sector of your company and not just the legal department. All of these things are crucial to growing and protecting your business.

Very recently, Uber announced its new patent purchasing program, which seeks to expedite the process of purchasing intellectual property. The open application window begins April 24 and closes May 23 of this year. During that time, Uber will likely be inundated with patent portfolios of all types and sizes, as the current patent owners propose a simple price that Uber can then take or walk away from.