Our Scientific Approach

Why layer separation matters

Many analytics tools mix data retrieval, scoring, and interpretation into an opaque pipeline.Stratensight keeps these layers separate so that users can audit each step independently. If you disagree with an interpretation, you can still trust the underlying scores. If you question a score, you can inspect the raw data it was computed from.

Momentum Index™

Measures the velocity and acceleration of innovation activity in a technology domain. High momentum signals active investment and growing interest; low momentum indicates stagnation or decline.

VARIABLES

• CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of patent filings over the analysis window
• S-curve position (Foster, 1986) — inflection detection on the technology adoption curve
• Filing volume — total number of patents in the analysis window
• Recent year-over-year (YoY) growth rate — captures acceleration or deceleration

CONCEPTUAL FORMULA

Theoretical reference: S-curve model (Foster, 1986). Technologies follow an S-shaped adoption curve — Momentum captures where on this curve the filing activity currently sits. CAGR is normalized over the analysis window to avoid penalizing technologies with shorter histories.

Example: A technology with 12% CAGR, early S-curve position, 450 patents, and +25% YoY yields a Momentum of ~78 (HIGH).

Lifecycle Position™

Identifies the current phase of a technology along the S-curve lifecycle. This score tells you whether a technology is nascent, growing, or saturated — critical context for any investment or R&D decision.

VARIABLES

• Patent age profile — distribution of filing dates across the analysis window
• CPC diversity — breadth of technology classes covered (higher diversity = earlier phase)
• Assignee consolidation — concentration trend over time (increasing consolidation = later phase)

CONCEPTUAL FORMULA

THE 5 PHASES

Transition detection: the model monitors growth deceleration, CPC diversity shift, and assignee concentration changes to detect phase transitions automatically. Transitions are not instantaneous — a technology may exhibit characteristics of two adjacent phases during transition periods.

Technology Maturity Priors: For well-established technologies, Stratensight applies known maturity baselines to prevent misclassification when temporal data is limited. When a prior is applied, a transparency flag is surfaced so the reader knows the lifecycle was adjusted from the industry consensus, not from patents alone.

Priors de maturité technologique : pour les technologies établies, Stratensight applique des niveaux de maturité connus pour éviter une mauvaise classification.

EPO Indexation Delay: Patent filings from the last 18 months may not yet be fully indexed. CAGR on short windows may appear negative while the market is actually growing. Stratensight surfaces a warning flag in this case rather than silently reporting the skewed value.

Délai d’indexation EPO : les dépôts récents (<18 mois) peuvent ne pas être indexés ; le CAGR peut sembler négatif alors que le marché croît en réalité.

Competitive Openness™

ALSO KNOWN AS OPENNESS SCORE™

Measures the competitive structure of the technology landscape. A high score means the field is accessible to new entrants; a low score means it is dominated by a small number of players with concentrated patent portfolios.

VARIABLES

• HHI (Herfindahl-Hirschman Index) — standard antitrust concentration measure used by the FTC and EU DG COMP
• New entrant rate — ratio of first-time filers in the domain over a recent window
• Top-5 concentration ratio — combined patent share of the five largest assignees

CONCEPTUAL FORMULA

In Stratensight, market share is measured by patent filing count per assignee. The HHI is inverted so that a higher Openness score corresponds to a more accessible market. New entrant rate captures the dynamism of the competitive landscape — domains where new players regularly enter score higher than those locked by incumbents.

Intelligence Grade™

Measures the reliability of the analysis itself. Higher grades mean more trustworthy signals. Unlike the other scores which measure the technology, this score measures the quality of the data used to compute everything else.

VARIABLES

• Dataset size — volume of patents analyzed (more data = higher confidence)
• Temporal coverage — year span of filing dates (wider span = better trend detection)
• Data completeness — fill rate of key fields (abstracts, CPC codes, assignees, dates)
• Clustering quality — silhouette score of topic clusters (measures internal coherence)

CONCEPTUAL FORMULA

WHY IT PENALIZES INCOMPLETE DATA

Missing abstracts reduce cluster quality. Missing filing dates impair Momentum calculation. Missing CPC codes weaken Lifecycle detection. Missing assignee fields make competitive analysis unreliable. The Grade reflects these real analytical impacts — it is not an arbitrary penalty but a direct measure of what the algorithms can and cannot compute.

CONTEXTUAL ADJUSTMENTS

Three contextual adjustments may reduce the Intelligence Grade™:

• Source retention: factor 0.65–1.0 depending on what percentage of patents passed filtering (≥60% retention = no penalty, <25% = ×0.65)
• Geographic coverage: up to −8 points if CN patents are underrepresented vs domain baseline
• Academic fallback: ×0.75 if academic sources substitute primary patent sources

These adjustments are applied automatically and reported in the transparency trace.

Signal Context

When a signal is degraded or unavailable, Stratensight displays the cause and recommended corrective action directly in the report. This transparency is deterministic — computed automatically, never AI-generated.

Quand un signal est dégradé ou indisponible, Stratensight affiche directement dans le rapport la cause et l’action corrective recommandée. Cette transparence est déterministe — calculée automatiquement, jamais générée par IA.

Decision Engine™

Combines all four scores into a single strategic verdict with confidence. The weighting reflects the relative importance of each dimension for technology investment decisions.

WEIGHTING AND FORMULA

LAYER A — VERDICT THRESHOLDS (AND-LOGIC)

All conditions must be met simultaneously. A high Momentum alone is not sufficient for INVEST. The Decision Score shown in the UI is an indicative composite — the verdict is determined by the multi-criteria AND logic above.

LAYER B — BLOCKING GUARDS

Eight canonical guards detect data conditions that compromise verdict reliability. When triggered, a guard either downgrades the verdict (e.g. INVEST → MONITOR) or attaches an explanation surfaced in the UI alongside the result.

• bad_quality — Intelligence Grade™ below threshold; signal reliability reduced.
• small_dataset — Patent corpus too small for high-confidence conclusions.
• mature_declining — Mature technology with falling momentum; limited upside.
• ip_concentration — Few actors control the IP landscape; entry barriers raised.
• research_phase — Technology still in research; commercial validation pending.
• lifecycle_na — Lifecycle stage could not be determined from the dataset.
• openness_na — Openness signal could not be computed from the dataset.
• ig_na — Intelligence Grade™ computation failed; signal reliability unknown.

Note: momentum_na is handled by a separate path (Coherence Validator rule C8) rather than the canonical guard set, because momentum unavailability triggers a deterministic verdict downgrade (INVEST → MONITOR, MONITOR → EXPLORE) before guard evaluation.

Absolute rule: no verdict is ever produced without a confidence score. Low Intelligence Grade™ triggers mandatory disclaimers on the verdict itself.

LAYER C — TIER GATE (CONFIDENCE)

Layer C subordinates the user-facing verdict to evidence_certainty — a categorical reliability label (HIGH / MODERATE / LOW / VERY_LOW) derived from the Intelligence Grade™ framework. A verdict is never presented without a coherent confidence signal attached. The mapping is categorical, not threshold-based.

TIER MODERATE — DIRECTIONAL SIGNAL LABELS

When evidence_certainty is MODERATE or LOW, the raw verdict is mapped to a directional label that signals direction without committing to a categorical recommendation — the audit-grade language defendable in front of an IP firm’s clients.

• INVEST → OPPORTUNITY_SIGNAL
• MONITOR → MIXED_SIGNAL
• EXPLORE → WEAK_SIGNAL
• AVOID → NEGATIVE_SIGNAL

When evidence_certainty is VERY_LOW, the verdict is fully withheld and replaced by INSUFFICIENT_DATA: no signal can be defended. Resolve the underlying signal-integrity issues before re-analysis.

Why Layer C exists: prior to its introduction, a verdict like « INVEST + Confidence 50 » was structurally possible because the AND-logic operates on raw scores while evidence_certainty derives from orthogonal signals (critical issues, silhouette, source coverage). Layer C subordinates the user-facing verdict to the certainty label so every output is auditable: here is the verdict, here is the confidence band that supports it.

The verdict is a synthesis tool, not a recommendation. It condenses multi-dimensional analysis into a single directional signal. Strategic decisions should consider the individual scores, not just the final verdict.

Critical Reader™ — Signal Integrity™

Every analysis audits itself before it is presented. The Critical Reader™ layer runs between scoring and interpretation: it verifies that the verdict is mathematically consistent with the underlying scores, that the dataset has not produced silent artifacts, and that no rule of analytical hygiene has been violated. Runs on every analysis, on every plan, with no gating.

9 DETERMINISTIC RULES

• CE1 — Momentum vs YoY divergence (recent_yoy_mean coherence with CAGR)
• CE2 — Verdict vs AND-logic criteria (INVEST without all three thresholds met fires critical)
• CE3 — White Space saturation impossibility on small clusters
• CE4 — CPC diversity contradiction (concentration vs dispersion)
• CE5 — Temporal span consistency with phase detection
• S1 — Source coverage anomaly (retention vs domain baseline)
• M_CAGR_LAST_YEAR_ARTIFACT — CAGR distorted by last-year filing lag
• L_ACADEMIC_DOMINANCE — Lifecycle bias from academic source fallback
• D_ABSTRACT_FILL_CRITICAL — Abstract fill rate below clustering threshold

AI AUDITOR — CONTEXTUAL LAYER

Claude Sonnet 4.6 reads the full analysis context (scores, metadata, source mode) and may surface up to 8 additional issues that the deterministic rules cannot express. Hard guardrails apply: allowed_values whitelist, ±0.5 float tolerance, 15-second timeout, 2048 max output tokens. The auditor never invents a fact and never re-scores — it can only flag.

SEVERITY MODEL

• critical — mathematical or pipeline inconsistency (e.g. INVEST verdict with a failing AND criterion). Verdict remains visible but should be reviewed before action.
• warning — data-quality concern that may bias the signal (small dataset, low coverage, abstract fill below threshold).
• info — legitimate downgrade by a Layer B guard (research-phase, IP concentration, mature+declining). Surfaces the constraint, never blocks the result.

RELIABILITY GUARANTEES

• Fail-safe: an audit failure never blocks the pipeline — the analysis is delivered with a Signal Integrity unavailable badge.
• No gating: the audit is shown on every analysis, every plan. Scientific credibility cannot be fragmented.
• Cache-safe: audit results are cached 24h keyed by (scores + metadata + source mode + locale).
• Budget kill-switch: 500 LLM audits per day across the platform — a safety bound, not a cost optimization.

Why this layer exists: a verdict you cannot audit is a verdict you cannot trust. Stratensight presents the audit before the verdict, not after.

IP Barrier Index™

Composite score measuring IP barrier strength within a technology domain. Quantifies how difficult it is for new entrants to compete based on existing patent portfolios.

FORMULA

IP Barrier = citation_fortress × 0.35 + market_control × 0.35 + active_protection × 0.30

SCALE

• HIGH ≥ 70: Strong IP barriers — significant portfolio required to compete.
• MEDIUM 40–69: Moderate barriers — selective entry possible.
• LOW < 40: Accessible landscape — limited IP concentration.

Available when n ≥ 50 patents AND Intelligence Grade™ ≥ 60%.

White Space Score™

Measures uncontested innovation zones within technology clusters. Identifies where filing opportunities exist with minimal competitive pressure.

INTERPRETATION

• HIGH ≥ 60: Many open clusters — significant room for new filings.
• MEDIUM 30–59: Mixed landscape — selective opportunities exist.
• LOW < 30: Most clusters contested — limited white space available.

Computed per cluster using diversity, citation pressure, dominance, and freshness. Global score = (open patents / total patents) × 100. Requires minimum 50 patents, Intelligence Grade™ ≥ 60%, micro-clusters < 3 excluded.

Data Requirements & Signal Guards

MINIMUM DATASET SIZE

• Upload mode: ≥ 50 patents recommended for reliable clustering. Below 50, Momentum Index™ is flagged as low-confidence.
• Query mode: ≥ 150 patents recommended. Below 150, the Signals page shows a data quality warning.

TEMPORAL COVERAGE

A minimum span of 3 years is required for Momentum Index™ calculation. Datasets with fewer than 3 years of filing dates receive a temporal bias warning and a degraded confidence score.

MOMENTUM FALLBACK POLICY

• When Momentum cannot be calculated (insufficient data), the score is set to N/A — never estimated.
• Verdicts are automatically downgraded by the Coherence Validator (rule C8) when Momentum is unavailable: INVEST → MONITOR, MONITOR → EXPLORE.

INTELLIGENCE GRADE THRESHOLD

A verdict of INVEST requires a Intelligence Grade™ ≥ 40. Below this threshold, the verdict is capped at MONITOR regardless of the other scores.

Exigences de données et garde-fous des signaux. Taille minimale : Upload ≥ 50 brevets recommandé pour un clustering fiable ; en dessous, le Momentum Score est signalé comme peu fiable. Query ≥ 150 brevets recommandé ; en dessous, la page Signals affiche un avertissement qualité de données. Couverture temporelle : une période minimale de 3 ans est requise pour le Momentum Score ; les datasets de moins de 3 ans reçoivent un avertissement de biais temporel et un score de confiance dégradé. Fallback Momentum : lorsque le Momentum ne peut pas être calculé, le score est fixé à N/A — jamais estimé ; le Coherence Validator (règle C8) rétrograde alors le verdict : INVEST → MONITOR, MONITOR → EXPLORE. Seuil de confiance : un verdict INVEST exige un Intelligence Grade™ ≥ 40. En dessous de ce seuil, le verdict est plafonné à MONITOR quels que soient les autres scores.

EPO Open Patent Services (OPS)

The European Patent Office's free API provides structured access to worldwide patent data covering EP, US, PCT/WO, CN, JP, and KR filings with international visibility.

STRENGTHS

• Structured metadata with reliable CPC classifications assigned by patent examiners
• Real-time access to recently published patents
• Multi-jurisdiction coverage (EP, US, PCT, WO, CN, JP, KR)
• Official source maintained by the European Patent Office

LIMITATIONS

• Results capped at 2,000 patents per query — broad technology domains may be truncated
• Recent filings may have a 3–6 month indexing delay
• Domestic-only filings from IN, TR, BR are not available
• Assignee name normalization is limited — same entity may appear under different names

How Stratensight uses it: Primary source for Explorer analyses. Queries are built using CPC codes for precision. When results approach the 2,000 cap, a warning is displayed and users are encouraged to narrow their query or use Upload mode for complete coverage.

Google Patents BigQuery

Google's worldwide patent database covers 120M+ patents across all major jurisdictions, accessible via BigQuery for large-scale analysis.

STRENGTHS

• Broadest geographic coverage of any single patent database
• No per-query result cap — full dataset queries possible
• Cross-jurisdiction family deduplication available
• Includes full-text abstracts and claims for most patents

LIMITATIONS

• Indexing delay of approximately 6 months for recent filings
• Assignee names are auto-normalized — precision may vary for large corporate groups and subsidiaries
• CPC codes may lag behind EPO’s official assignments for recently classified patents

Complementarity with EPO: Google Patents provides broader geographic coverage than EPO OPS alone, while EPO provides more structured metadata and reliable CPC classifications.Stratensight uses both sources to maximize coverage while maintaining data quality.

OpenAlex (Fallback only)

OpenAlex is an open-access database of 250M+ academic publications.Stratensight uses it only as a last-resort fallback when patent data from EPO and Google Patents is insufficient for a meaningful analysis.

IMPACT ON SCORES

• Key actors reflect academic institutions instead of companies
• Momentum Index™ may be underestimated (publication cadence differs from patent filing cadence)
• The competitive landscape reflects research activity, not commercial IP positioning
• Lifecycle Position™ is unreliable (academic publication patterns differ from patent filing patterns)
• Openness Score™ reflects academic collaboration, not industrial competition

This is always signaled explicitly in the UI with a non-dismissible amber warning banner. Intelligence Grade™ is automatically reduced when OpenAlex is the primary source.

User-uploaded datasets (Premium)

The most reliable source. Users export patent data from professional databases and upload it directly, bypassing all API limitations.

ADVANTAGES

• Full control over scope and date range — no arbitrary caps
• Reproducible results — same dataset always produces the same scores
• Source is auto-detected and Intelligence Grade™ is adjusted based on known completeness of each export format
• Supports larger datasets than Explorer (no 2,000 patent limit)
• Date-stamped analysis that can be archived and compared over time

COMPATIBLE SOURCES

What is CPC?

CPC is a patent classification system jointly managed by the EPO and USPTO. It assigns one or more technology codes to every patent, organized in a hierarchy:

Sections A through H cover the full range of technology, from human necessities (A) to electricity (H), with Y codes for cross-sectional technologies. Using CPC codes instead of free-text keywords eliminates linguistic ambiguity and provides consistent, language-independent technology mapping across all patent offices worldwide.

How Stratensight maps queries to CPC

When a user enters a technology topic in Explorer, the system maps it to relevant CPC codes through a multi-level fallback strategy. Each level has a different confidence level, and the system always selects the highest-confidence match available.

5 FALLBACK LEVELS

Why CPC is better than free-text keywords

Patent data coverage varies significantly by jurisdiction. Stratensight’s coverage depends on the data source used and whether filings have international visibility.

Temporal limitations

Patents filed within the last 3–6 months may not yet appear in EPO or Google Patents indexes. This affects recent momentum calculations for fast-moving domains. For time-sensitive analyses, upload a dataset with complete, recent filing data.

The 18-month secrecy period (standard in most jurisdictions) means that the most recent patent applications are inherently invisible to any analytics tool, not just Stratensight.

Data quality limitations

Patent databases contain inconsistencies that affect analysis quality:

• Assignee names may be recorded differently across offices (e.g., “Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.” vs “Samsung Electronics”)
• CPC codes are updated periodically — older patents may carry outdated classifications
• Abstracts may be missing for some jurisdictions, reducing cluster quality
• Filing date vs publication date discrepancies can affect temporal analysis

Stratensight applies normalization (assignee name matching, family deduplication) to mitigate these issues, but perfect accuracy is not achievable with any automated system.

What Stratensight does NOT do

Stratensight is a patent analytics platform. It is not a substitute for legal, financial, or strategic consulting. Specifically, Stratensight does not provide:

• Commercial valuation of patents or technologies
• Revenue or market size predictions
• Legal advice or freedom-to-operate assessment
• Patent validity or enforceability opinions
• Guarantee of future technology outcomes
• Prior art search or novelty assessment
• Claim-level analysis or infringement detection
• Regulatory or compliance guidance
• Competitor revenue or financial performance data
• Licensing or transaction recommendations

Comparing analyses over time

To track technology evolution, archive your uploaded dataset with its date. Upload the same domain from the same source at different dates to observe score changes. Explorer snapshots should be compared directionally only — exact score differences may reflect index updates rather than real technology shifts.

Algorithm versioning

Stratensight’s scoring algorithms are versioned. When weights or formulas are updated, the version number changes. Analyses run under different algorithm versions are not directly comparable. The algorithm version is recorded with each analysis for traceability.