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SRAM Relies on Delphion Research to Protect Innovations, Identify New Business Opportunities |
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A Delphion Inc. Case Study |
Summary
SRAM is recognized as one of the most innovative companies in the bicycle market. To maintain the company's leadership in developing new technologies, SRAM's legal and engineering teams rely on Delphion Research for fast and easy access to information about the intellectual property that impacts their market. Delphion Research is enabling SRAM to both better protect its innovations and identify opportunities for business growth.
Challenge
SRAM is a leading full-line manufacturer of bicycle components, including systems for shifting, braking, internal and external gear changing, and suspension. Founded in 1987, the Chicago-based company has quickly grown to over 1,000 employees. It has offices and manufacturing facilities throughout the world, including China, Germany, Taiwan, Ireland, the Netherlands and Portugal.
From its beginning, SRAM has focused on product innovation to fuel its growth. The company's cutting-edge products have been recognized worldwide for both their form and function by bicycle enthusiasts and organizations such as I.D. Magazine. SRAM has earned more than 135 patents worldwide for its innovations.
To both better protect its innovations and help grow its business, SRAM's legal and engineering teams require complete information about the intellectual property that impacts the company's market. Specifically, they need to:
- stay abreast of market innovations by monitoring for new patents and patent applications on a global basis;
- conduct competitive intelligence by determining who owns particular patents and all the countries in which specific patents have been granted;
- analyze the strength of particular patents by researching their legal status, including prosecution history; and
- share intellectual property information with other company decision-makers by easily downloading and printing patents.
Solution
To meet all these objectives, the SRAM team relies on Delphion Research, an Internet-based service for researching intellectual property and related information. Delphion Research enables business professionals to:
- search all the world's top patent collections, including those of the U.S., Europe, Japan and World Intellectual Property Organization;
- explore prior art resources and value-added databases like Derwent and INPADOC;
- take advantage of intuitive, powerful search technology that enables both expert and novice patent researchers to succeed;
- leverage unique and exclusive productivity tools to quickly and easily analyze and track market developments and competitive activities; and
- view, download and print high-quality patent images.
Results
Delphion Research is a key part of SRAM's product development process. Before the company invests time and money in the development of a new product, its legal and engineering teams research the worldwide intellectual property landscape surrounding that type of product. By doing this, they can better identify product features that may already be legally protected by another company, as well as those that aren't — and therefore offer SRAM the opportunity to seize ownership of a new technology.
SRAM's attorneys use Delphion Research to investigate companies, both for competitive intelligence and to identify potential business partners. Full information about the patents owned by a particular company is a key factor in helping SRAM's executives make decisions about business development opportunities.
For example, SRAM's legal team used Delphion Research to analyze RockShox Inc., a developer of bicycle suspension systems and holder of more than 20 patents in this area. The information about RockShox gained from Delphion Research played a key part in the decision of SRAM's executives to enter into a definitive agreement to acquire RockShox. With RockShox, SRAM will expand its product line and move closer to its stated goal of being the most valuable supplier in the bicycle industry.
Because Delphion Research doesn't require its users to have advanced intellectual property research skills, SRAM's legal team can extend use of the website to other groups within the company, so they can do their own research. This not only frees up time for SRAM's legal team, but enables other employees, particularly engineers, to conduct research firsthand — and sometimes get key information they may not have gotten otherwise.
For SRAM, Delphion Research is a tool that keeps the company on the cutting-edge of its business.
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