Materials development fueled by innovation intelligence
A disruptive materials company, Presidium USA specializes in the manufacturing of materials to fill specific, identifiable voids in the marketplace – voids that no other material can presently fill. Based on that definition, one might say that Presidium is truly in the business of innovation, as they work intentionally to bring novel materials to market.
Founded four years ago, Presidium considers itself a small startup with big things on the horizon. They’re currently focused on expanding their nascent product line of polyurethanes, which are in high demand for their special properties of heat resistance and durability. According to Andrew Caruso, IP Manager for Presidium, having ready access to connected innovation intelligence, is going to be the key ingredient in their projected growth.
Since Presidium is focused on filling gaps in the market with their novel materials, avoiding infringement on any company’s IP rights is critical to their business. “If you can’t own the intellectual property, then you don’t have a leg to stand on.” says Caruso. “If someone else has a patent that’s stopping you from doing what you would like to do, then they’re pretty much in control. That’s why it’s really important to know what the intellectual property landscape looks like and also what the technology landscape looks like.”
Shedding light on the innovation landscape with connected intelligence
This is where PatSnap’s Insights solution comes in handy for Presidium. With a database of over 140 million global patents, PatSnap offers a 360-degree view of activities within a specific technology space and the companies that are actively innovating in that area. “PatSnap is great because you see a patent, and you get some kind of evaluation [with it] that tells you about the level of technical innovation. You can follow up and see what other patents are available, how many places they’re filed in, and what areas that company has been working in for the last 15 or 20 years. It’s a great tool to figure out where you stand in relation to the rest of the world.”
Presidium’s need for an innovation intelligence solution was clear from the very start of their business as they were admittedly testing out new products in the dark. “What we needed was something to give us more certainty in our decision-making,” said Caruso. “At the end of the day, we could do as many experiments in the lab as we wanted to, but we wouldn’t know if any of them had been claimed by others until we looked really hard at the patent literature.”
In fact, Presidium used PatSnap to confirm that they made the right decision in filing a patent for their first-generation product, by looking at the patent landscape to validate the innovation’s novelty. “We needed to see who else had been working in this same area,” says Caruso. “We were able to use PatSnap to try and figure out who else was doing the same kind of chemical reaction to produce something useful.”
Innovation intelligence has been key to Presidium’s product ramp up, as it’s allowed them to validate the novelty of their materials and file patents with confidence. “Since we understand the patent landscape around our nascent products, we’ve been able to aggressively file patent applications, and draft them appropriately so we can get them to issue,” says Caruso. With surety in their products, the next step for Presidium is turning interested prospects into customers.
Using PatSnap to continue on their growth journey
As a startup, maintaining the confidence of investors is vital to Presidium’s continued operations. According to Caruso, their use of PatSnap not only benefits them from a product development perspective, but it also helps to prove to investors that they’re doing their operational due diligence. “Investors want to know how you’re gathering the intelligence you need to make good decisions. We specifically tell them about PatSnap and it’s a very strong selling point for us in demonstrating our seriousness with backers.”
With big things in the pipeline, Presidium is also cognizant of the cost-to-value ratio of their current suite of solutions, and the case for continuing to use PatSnap is self-evident. “It costs us a lot less to do the analytics work with PatSnap, than doing that work with something else. It would simply take a lot more time and we would get a much worse outcome.” Caruso references the speed in which PatSnap generates its findings to be particularly useful, enabling him to get in and out of the solution, equipped with the information he needs, quickly.
Having used PatSnap from the outset of their business, Caruso doesn’t ever envision a future for Presidium without the solution. Calling it an “essential part of what we do,” PatSnap has become a core component of Presidium’s operations, and will continue to be a trusted and highly utilized resource as they grow their business and accommodate even higher volumes of new materials development.
