Technological Innovation, from A to Z
UNICO is a technology development and consulting firm founded in 2017. The company works with its customers to aid in all aspects of technological innovation, “from A to Z.” Starting with defining business innovation needs, continuing with ideation, developing a functional prototype, and eventually commercialization, UNICO uses its interdisciplinary research network, in-depth knowledge of the patent landscape, and its own powerful AI platform to deliver technological innovations based on ground-breaking science. During the first two years of operation, UNICO helped bridge contracts between various organizations worth approximately 30 million Czech crowns ($1.2M USD).
UNICO is built upon three pillars:
1. Its EXPERTS.ai platform: through various algorithms the company’s database pulls together science and academic experts, seamlessly connecting the private sector with the university environment.
2. Research and consulting: UNICO guides companies to find and develop the best tech solution possible.
3. Creating startups and connecting them with investors: the company facilitates the transformation of academic developments into successful spinout companies.
UNICO takes great pride in helping customers find the right technologies for their innovation goals as well as understand the associated risks. As such, conducting intellectual property due diligence and analysis and using robust data in all parts of UNICO’s innovation process is a key component of the company’s business model. In order to understand the risks associated with pursuing or developing a technology in a specific market, as well as owning IP in said market, Vojtech Nosek, CEO and Co-founder of UNICO, turned to PatSnap.
Dynamic and Digestible Data
Nosek explains, “Having access to information about a company’s innovation and technology is very important. As we consult with our customers, we do have some previous know-how and experience, but having an evidence-based approach with the data to support what we’re saying is very important.” Especially important to the UNICO team is having access to data that is dynamic. “Innovation is about change, but it is also constantly changing. Having updated, dynamic data is very important to us when it comes to analyzing a customer’s technology or IP. PatSnap’s unrivaled breadth of data and weekly updates, have been the perfect partner in helping us tackle this.” PatSnap transformed patent data, which is historically very complicated, and made it easily accessible and digestible, further enabling innovation professionals to excel in their work.
Searching Capabilities
As part of its innovation services, UNICO works with companies looking to acquire technology from other countries. Depending on the technology being acquired, there can be upwards of hundreds of patents they must review and filter through. Using PatSnap, this process is much more efficient – the team can filter and sort through documents based on country, legal status, and more, and then analyze the information to extract meaningful insights — saving a lot of time in the long run. The standardization of PatSnap’s data makes evaluating patent data and analyzing a company’s portfolio a much simpler process. “When we are working with global companies there can very often be different spellings and iterations of a company name. Using PatSnap’s standardized assignee we can be sure we are getting the complete global picture of a company’s innovation profile.”
Many of UNICO’s projects last for months. As such, being well-informed about any changes to the patent landscape is of the utmost importance, as it helps the company decide when to pivot as needed. According to Nosek, workspaces are especially very useful with longer projects. “What’s really valuable is that our project folders are automatically updated, so anytime something changes, such as a new patent being filed, we are notified immediately by email.”
Innovation Efficiencies
Since transitioning to using PatSnap, the UNICO team noticed an uptick in efficiency. “PatSnap’s user-friendly interface helped us transform our internal patent analyses to being upwards of 50% more efficient.” Some of the key features that aided in this transformation include:
– PatSnap Workspaces: “Our project folders are automatically updated, so anytime something changes, such as a new patent being filed, we are notified immediately by email.”
– The standardization of patent assignees: “There can very often be different spellings and iterations of a company name. Using PatSnap’s standardized assignee we can be sure we are getting the complete global picture of a company’s innovation profile.”
– PatSnap’s breadth of consistently updated data: Leveraging updated, global information empowers the UNICO team to have “an evidence-based approach with the data to support [it].”
The UNICO team did use other innovation intelligence tools in the past, but they found that “many other tools are not as user friendly. We would spend hours on the computer trying to conduct our research, ensuring we were covering everything – but as a result our processes were much less structured.” After transitioning to PatSnap, the team said the PatSnap platform can be described in one word, “time-saver.”
