Home > Resources > News & Press Center > European Commission’s DG-Comp Relies on LexisNexis® When Evaluating Anti-trust Merger Cases

European Commission’s DG-Comp Relies on LexisNexis® When Evaluating Anti-trust Merger Cases

European Commission’s DG-Comp Relies on LexisNexis PatentSight when Evaluating Anti-trust Cases in Mergers

December 10, 2019

In an international tender, the EU Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition selected LexisNexis® PatentSight® and its business intelligence analytics software as the patent data and patent analytics provider.

Bonn, Germany – December 10, 2019 – Patent metrics have increasingly been used to assess the innovative competitiveness of technology-oriented firms in recent years. The European Commission was no different when evaluating and predicting the potential impact of recent mergers on innovation competition and knowledge flows. Recently, the Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition (DG-Comp) selected PatentSight GmbH — a LexisNexis® company — and its business intelligence analytics software as their primary supplier for patent data and patent analytics.

Ensuring competition and innovation based on advanced patent analytics

The European Commission’s DG-Comp is primarily responsible to ensure that corporations compete equally and fairly on their merits in the European market. Utilizing analytics from the PatentSight® platform, featuring its scientifically-published metrics, it is possible to conduct thorough analysis of the innovation landscapes and to predict changes to market forces, especially with respect to innovation incentives and transfer of knowledge.

Given the significant heterogeneity in patent quality, the DG-Comp recognized years ago that a firm’s technological strength would not be well reflected in simple patent counts alone. To address this concern, they have already used measures from LexisNexis® PatentSight® in order to assess patent quality and the influence of technology. Specifically, PatentSight was used for the Commission’s investigation of the mergers between Dow and DuPont as well as the merger between Bayer and Monsanto.

European Commission’s DG-Comp’s tender jury was convinced by PatentSight

After a comprehensive screening process, the DG-Comp invited the world’s leading patent data and patent analytics providers to a tender. Among the other candidates, PatentSight was given the opportunity to present and prove the quality of the patent database and the analytical capabilities of the PatentSight software solution.

The patent data and analytics providers were judged by criteria such as:

  • Data coverage, content, quality and cleaning
  • Search capabilities
  • Patent analytics and reports
  • User interface and flexibility
  • Support and training

“PatentSight was able to convince the jury with their high-quality standards in data cleaning and data refinement that go far beyond what authorities, such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), suggest as standard procedures,” stated Nils Omland, Founder and CEO of PatentSight. He elaborated, “Moreover, the user interface and the flexibility of the software, as well as the support by the Customer Success team at PatentSight received the highest recognition.”

PatentSight is also used by other international authorities, corporate patent departments, research and development departments, universities and innovation centers. It is used by over 100 leading technology companies, including 15 of the 30 German DAX companies and seven of the global top ten chemical companies. Investment managers and consulting companies are also using the PatentSight solution when considering patent portfolios, an essential task in strategic technology analysis, for due diligence and ESG screenings.

About PatentSight

PatentSight was founded in 2008 by Nils Omland as a spin-off of WHU – Otto-Beisheim School of Management. In 2009, PatentSight developed a scientific method for evaluating patent quality and benchmarking patent portfolios. The Patent Asset Index™ has been rapidly adopted by leading international companies as an approach to strategic patent analysis. PatentSight launched the first Business Intelligence solution in 2012. The software enables users to analyze the patent portfolios of competitors, suppliers, customers and new market participants, and to recognize opportunities as well as disruptive technologies at an early stage. The metrics featured in PatentSight have been published in scientific papers and the platform has received a patent for its uniqueness. Owned by RELX since May 2018, PatentSight enriches the product portfolio of LexisNexis® IP solutions. In 2019, PatentSight was awarded the SIIA CODiE Award for “Best Big Data Reporting & Analytics Solutions.”

LexisNexis® Legal & Professional is a leading global provider of legal, regulatory, and business information and analytics that help customers increase productivity, improve decision-making and outcomes, and advance the rule of law around the world. As a digital pioneer, the company was the first to bring legal and business information online with its Lexis® and Nexis® services. LexisNexis Legal & Professional, which serves customers in more than 130 countries with 10,000 employees worldwide, is part of RELX, a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers.

Was this post helpful?