Patents and people protect Siemens’ intellectual property worldwide
Recent years have seen information and knowledge acquire growing importance compared to other production factors such as capital, raw materials, land, and real estate. Today a company’s competitiveness depends very much on its know-how. At Siemens, more than 200 specialists are responsible for optimizing the use of patents. Their strategy is to ensure that all new patents generate maximum value for the company. Here the value of a new invention is a function of not only its technological ingenuity but also, and above all, of the level of market interest it is likely to generate.
With around 57,300 patents worldwide, Siemens takes intellectual property protection very seriously indeed.
Patent rankings demonstrate that the company is consistently one of the most innovative firms in the world. Especially important here are so-called key patents, which protect know-how in specific areas from the competition. Such key patents are exceedingly difficult for market competitors to circumvent by means of alternative technologies. This applies particularly to patents that have been incorporated into an international standard or have themselves established a de facto standard. At Siemens such patents include those related to control technology, industrial automation, network management, rail traffic management (ETCS), and operator interfaces.
The patent team’s strategy is above all to promote industrial property rights in trend-setting technologies such as remote maintenance and efficient and low-emission energy generation systems. Siemens has around 16,700 patents to protect the solutions from its Environmental Portfolio alone. Generating patents is an integral part of the entire development process. After all, patents play an important role in helping to ensure that know-how is secured for Siemens as quickly and fully as possible.
On particularly important projects, the team expressly solicits the submission of reports on inventions by means of “invention on demand” workshops or by IP benchmarking-process whereby competitors’ patent portfolios and the state of their technologies are analyzed and shown to developers. Over the past ten years, Siemens substantially increased the number of inventions it generates. In fact, the average number of inventions reported per R&D employee has doubled since 2001.
In addition to securing protection for the company’s intellectual property, one of the patent team’s key tasks is to monitor whether Siemens’ patents are being illegally exploited by other market players. This is a complex process for a globally operating company, not least because regulations differ from country to country. What’s more, different businesses require different approaches. Whereas all instances of product piracy in the field of automation technology must be effectively prevented, the company’s commanding position in the medical technology sector can also be used to negotiate unrestricted access to the technology of major competitors through cross-licensing.
In order to strengthen its own market position, Siemens also actively uses its patent portfolio to swap or sell licenses, negotiate comprehensive cross-licensing agreements, and penalize patent infringements. This is one reason for the company’s regional distribution, with greater protection in the new Asian markets, for example. The battle to defend intellectual property – which has been described as the nerve center of the European and U.S. economies – has intensified dramatically in recent years. Siemens is well prepared for this struggle.
Dr. Thomas Roth – one of Siemens Corporate Technology’s 200 patent experts.
Dr. Thomas Roth – Protecting Know-how Related to Fossil Fuel Power Plants
To complement his interest in legal issues, Thomas Roth has a way with words. While working as a research assistant in physics at Kaiserslautern University in Germany, he came into contact with Siemens’ intellectual property rights when he was dealing with the university’s patent information center. He was immediately enthusiastic about a job description for the post of patent attorney, for which a degree in engineering or natural sciences is required. As a result, Roth decided to join Siemens’ Intellectual Property Department in 1998.
Like all patent attorneys, Roth had to plow through miles of legal texts and seminar papers while training for his new profession. Depending on the precise focus of their studies, students in this field subsequently take on a heavy schedule of exams, and if they are successful they can become either a European or a German patent attorney. Today, Roth is Siemens’ key account manager responsible for all intellectual property rights issues concerning fossil fuel power plants worldwide. His work includes strategically aligning the activities of intellectual property management, coordinating related measures, and maximizing the benefits associated with all IP services for the company’s business in this sector.
Wolfgang Zeiler – one of Siemens Corporate Technology’s 200 patent experts.
Wolfgang Zeiler – Focusing on Industry
Electrical engineers generally don’t work their way through mountains of files, deliver eloquent testimony before a court of law, and polish the wording of texts. But Wolfgang Zeiler worked as an electrical engineer in the research and development of Siemens rail systems for several years before he became a patent expert in 2002. While gaining this qualification, Zeiler, like all patent attorneys, initially worked for three years under the supervision of an experienced colleague from the Intellectual Property Department. Today he is a licensed patent assessor and a European patent attorney at IP’s Industry Solutions Department, where he is responsible for protecting Siemens innovations.
Four times a year, the Siemens Patent Committee reviews and evaluates all the reports on inventions that have been submitted by employees and then selects those that are suitable for patenting. “That takes a lot of foresight. For a start, patents cost money, and secondly, we have to make sure that the portfolio as a whole has no gaps and that it remains manageable,” explains Zeiler.
One of his tasks is to continuously optimize this and other core processes at CT IP. Zeiler heads the Processes unit, which records and documents patent processes for specialized departments at CT IP worldwide. The unit also draws up recommendations for improvements, including the exploitation of synergies. For example, it makes the most successful processes from individual IP departments into standards for all of Siemens.
Xiao Yang Qu – one of Siemens Corporate Technology’s 200 patent experts.
Xiao Yang Qu – Patent Specialist in One of the World’s most Promising Markets
Xiao Yang Qu is responsible for Siemens patents in what is probably one of the most interesting IP regions in the world: China. What particularly appeals to Qu, who is a mechanical engineer, is the wide range of his tasks. Not only must he and his department make effective use of Siemens patents; they also have to keep an eye on innumerable new products and solutions from competing companies. A key job here is to check to see if there have been any patent infringements. As it goes about its work, his department also monitors general developments in the Chinese market so that Siemens can respond as quickly as possible to new trends.
In addition, Qu and his colleagues closely examine product developments at Siemens to make sure they don’t infringe on other companies’ patents, a task that has to be performed especially meticulously in China. “Imitation products are no longer the only problem in China,” he says. “More patent applications will probably be filed in China this year than in the U.S.” Siemens alone applied for 1,226 patents in China in fiscal year 2009-2010. Drafting a suitably worded application requires a certain gift for abstraction as well as a feeling for language.
“The art is to achieve optimal protection for an invention without revealing too many of its actual technical features,” he says, describing this complex juggling act.
Karla Weyand – one of Siemens Corporate Technology’s 200 patent experts.
Karla Weyand – Diagnostics in North America
Process automation specialist Karla Weyand also works in a region that is renowned for its patent activity: North America. So far, the U.S. has been the country registering the largest number of patents. The daily grind that is involved in monitoring patent infringements and checking licenses means that the work is anything but straightforward. This is especially true with regard to patents in the area of diagnostics – an area that Weyand is responsible for in North America. Accordingly, the patent work she does is highly valued.
Among other things, Weyand takes great care that her department works very closely with Siemens’ research and development teams. One example of how patenting work at Siemens differs from that of other U.S. companies involves the provision of specific recommendations to employees on just what kinds of inventions to submit. Another is the company’s development of electronic tools for general patent searches.
New trends in the field and the aggressive exploitation of patents, especially in the U.S., mean that patent professionals like Weyand have to continually rethink their strategies. “But that’s exactly what makes this job so exciting – in spite of all the files,” she says.