As a patent portfolio manager of your small to medium-sized company, you would want an innovation management software that engages employees to generate ideas, aids the evaluation of ideas by management, and supports patenting and implementation of the idea.
According to one of the posts by Harvard Business Review, organizations need an automated, evidence-based innovation pipeline. They need a systematic process that operates with speed and urgency, which helps innovators curate and prioritize problems, ideas, and technologies.
With the right tool, you can foster innovation at your enterprise, thereby creating an intellectual property like patents–benefiting your business overall. Therefore, an innovation tracking software tailored to your needs shall be an asset.
The TIP Tool by Triangle IP
The TIP Tool is an intuitive drag-and-drop tool that enables you to capture enterprise-wide innovation and manage your patent lifecycle. It simplifies the capturing, tracking, and managing of your patent pipeline, placing you in control of your entire innovation management process.
Features of the TIP Tool
Intuitive Invention Disclosure Form
Capturing ideas is the first step of innovation management. Without the right tool, innovators would be discouraged from sharing their ideas. The TIP tool’s invention disclosure form uses a short, customizable idea form to encourage engagement from innovators.
A challenge you commonly face as an innovation manager is sorting and tracking numerous ideas from innovators at your enterprise. The TIP tool’s disclosure form makes this easy by enabling you to filter ideas using tags around technology, product line, or any other criterion.
The TIP tool also allows you to customize the form to suit the needs of your startup or enterprise. This flexibility makes the TIP tool a preferred innovation management tool among small to medium-sized enterprises.
Real-Time Collaboration
Unlike other innovation management tools, all the stakeholders, including inventors, managers, patent counsels, etc., can collaborate in real-time on the TIP tool to discuss and vet captured ideas.
The simplicity of the tool permits smooth team collaboration. Team members can add comments, respond to comments, and tag colleagues. The tool also keeps track of all the changes made to the idea and who made them.
It is similar to using Google Docs or Notion specially designed for innovation management.
Patent Pipeline Visibility
You can also track the progress of these ideas through the various stages of the patent process using the TIP tool.
The TIP tool has an Idea Manager platform that allows you to keep a tab on ideas as they move through the stages of the IP lifecycle from Idea Capture to Internal Vetting, Patent Drafting and then Filed. You can move an idea to the next step by simply dragging and dropping it.
The patent pipeline visibility feature ensures that you do not lose ideas along the patent lifecycle. It also enables you to know at what stage each idea is and the next steps to progress the idea.
Case Analytics and Cost Prediction
A utility patent in the U.S. alone may cost from a minimum of $10,000 to $50,000. With a limited IP budget, you would only be interested in pursuing viable and patentable ideas.
The TIP tool uses patent analytics to provide the probability of getting your idea patented at the patent office. Through studying millions of applications, it assigns a patent predictability score to your idea. It also predicts the cost of obtaining and maintaining the patent over a number of years.
This eliminates the uncertainty of making decisions on which idea to patent and helps you effectively allocate your IP budget.
Automatic USPTO Status Updates
It is often tiring to rely on external counsel for updates on your patent application. With the TIP tool, you can receive automatic updates on your application directly from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
You receive automatic and instant notification each time there is a status change in your published and unpublished patent applications at the USPTO. These notifications enable you to manage your applications better and save costs on attorney hours.
Patent Counsel and Examiner Statistics
The TIP tool’s patent counsel and examiner analytics help you make informed decisions with your patent counsel and examiner by knowing more about the law firm and examiner handling your application.It analyzes other patent applications reviewed by the examiner and predicts how the examiner might respond to your application. The more you understand the examiner handling your case, the better you will be able to negotiate the patent.
It also predicts the number of argument rounds and allowance time and helps you manage your legal costs.
Informative Dashboard
The TIP tool’s intuitive dashboard provides a holistic view of ideas, inventor activity, manager activity, filed applications, and patents. It also offers individual, role-specific dashboards to your inventors, managers, and patent practitioners.
Customer Review
User feedback on the TIP tool is a factor to consider before choosing an innovation management software. According to a survey, 72% of customers would not purchase a product until they have read reviews. Below is a user’s feedback on the TIP tool to help you decide:
More About the TIP Tool
Explore Triangle IP’s YouTube channel to get more information about the tool.
Playground
The TIP tool lets you take the flavor of the tool by providing sample data to try different features of the tool. They call it a playground. All you need to do is – sign up on the tool and select the “playground” named portfolio from the drop-down menu under your name.
Pricing
The TIP Tool comes with flexible pricing starting with a free package. It offers:
- Free tier
- Premium tier
- Custom tier
Source: Triangle IP
Free Trial
Yes, for 2 months.
The Invention Manager by AppColl
AppColl® Invention Manager™ is “a simple and easy-to-use disclosure submission and management system that allows inventors to document their inventions”. It also provides innovators and patent committees with a comprehensive view of all disclosures, their status, and subsequent actions.
Features of AppColl Invention Manager
Disclosure Form
AppColl’s invention manager’s tool is equipped with a disclosure form to receive the ideas and information needed to decide on patent filing from innovators.
The form is fully customizable and allows you to include as many as 48 questions for innovators to fill when disclosing an idea. You can also set up meta-data such as products, keywords, and technologies from which inventors can select to categorize their ideas.
Approval Flow
AppColl’s invention manager allows you to create invention approval workflow flowcharts with as many or as few steps and reviewers as desired.
At each stage in the workflow, you can create automated emails to notify inventors or other parties of the steps they need to take to move the idea to the stage.
Patent committees that decide on patent filing may also use the App Coll’s tool to vote on ideas the enterprise should patent.
Awards
AppColl’s Manager also facilitates your internal inventor award program. With the application, you can automatically calculate each inventor’s award amount which the tool will automatically send to your payroll department. The awards can be set to be triggered at any point in the patent lifecycle.
Integration
The AppColl’s Invention Manager also integrates with other enterprise software systems.
You can set up single sign-on login so that inventors can directly access AppColl after logging into your internal network without entering additional login credentials.
Inventors and others can also be granted or denied access to the application with a button click. You can add or remove committee members seamlessly and decide who has access to which data.
Reporting
With the AppColl tool, you can generate the information you need to manage your invention process. You can filter this information based on any value in any field, including the custom fields set up in the disclosure form.
The reporting features also allow you to generate graphs and charts on your dashboard to monitor the efficiency of your patent filing process.
Scoring
App Coll’s scoring feature allows reviewers, committee members, inventors, and other stakeholders to assess the idea against several attributes.
Ratings entered during the disclosure review are automatically transferred to the filed patent record for review and use throughout the patent lifecycle.
Customer Review
AppColl has received some reviews from users, which may help you decide what tool may be most suitable for your small or medium-sized enterprise.
Below is a snapshot of a user’s review of AppColl:
Demo Video
Yes.
Pricing
AppColl offers three subscription packages:
- AppColl PM Pro
- AppColl PM Plus
- AppColl IM
Its Invention Manager, AppColl IM, begins at $350 per month
Source: AppColl
It also offers a 30-day free trial for you to try out its features.
Summing it Up
Here is a quick summary of features for both tools. We hope it helps you make an informed choice for the software that suits your needs.
| Features | The TIP Tool | AppColl Invention Manager |
| Intuitive Disclosure Form | Yes | No |
| Ability to Track Ideas through Patents | Yes | Yes |
| Real-Time Collaboration | Yes | No |
| Automatic USPTO Updates | Yes | No |
| Playground – Sample data set to test the tool | Yes | Not sure |
| Ability to Identify Promising Innovators | Yes | Yes |
| Ability to Get a Glimpse of Patent Pipeline | Yes | Yes |
| Ease of Use | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing | Basic version is free
Premium – $50 per month |
Subscription begins at $350 per month |
| Free trial | 60 days – Try Now | 30-days – Try Now |
