Global players. We reveal the individuals who are driving the world s rapidly changing IP market

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1 Issue 86 November/December 2017 How Japanese corporate IP departments are reinventing themselves Celebrating (or not) five years of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board The challenges facing IP leaders in the financial technology industry Why researchers at Japan s biggest bank learned to love IP big data A deep dive into key patent issues facing the auto sector Global players We reveal the individuals who are driving the world s rapidly changing IP market

2 Watch and listen Feature 81 Is the Internet of Automobiles the next big thing? The auto sector and its underlying technology are changing rapidly. As the patent landscape also transforms, it is increasingly important to keep tabs on how the car giants, key suppliers and new entrants boost their IP portfolios By Murari Venkataraman, Vijaya Krishna and George Koomullil The Model S is not a car but a sophisticated computer on wheels Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla Given the level of technology which includes a 17-inch tablet in the dashboard of the Tesla Model S Musk s comment, made in March 2015, is not too far from the truth. Above all, it is emblematic of the changes occurring in the automotive sector. Since its advent, the automobile has been the preserve of an array of mechanical technologies. More recently, electrical and electronic advances have found their way into this sector, although nothing compares to the present changes. Automotive is one of many different sectors looking to improve its business processes and operations by tapping into the availability of ubiquitous connectivity, low-cost connected devices (eg, sensors, phones and tablets) and the increased power of cloud computing to process and analyse real-time streams of data. The aim is to help businesses to better manage, optimise and predict outcomes, leading to greater efficiency and enhanced profitability. This transformation has been dubbed as the Internet of Things (IoT). While the exact definition of IoT is still fuzzy, its effect has been felt in multiple sectors where it has enabled services prompted by freshuse cases and completely new business models. The automotive sector has been an early adopter and beneficiary of the digital technologies, giving rise to what could be described as the Internet of Automobiles (IoA). This article focuses on the intellectual property, primarily the patents, behind the digital technologies being incorporated into the automotive sector both within vehicles and into the ecosystem. The analysis is based on the patent assets filed in various jurisdictions, assignment transfer data provided by patent offices and corporate information available in the public domain. Unless stated otherwise, the analysis is based on patent equivalents. A patent equivalent refers to a set of patent filings representing a single invention, with the same priority documents. The same holds true for the numbers in the various figures and tables. The only departure from this is in the analysis and presentation of data related to patent filings in different geographies or jurisdictions. We use unique applications to indicate numbers in this case. We have restricted our study to patents published in the last 10 years (starting in 2007). The patents address technologies and systems connected with vehicles, the movement of vehicles and the ecosystem. Overlapping areas which are related to but not directly connected to vehicles, such as logistics, have not been included. Ecosystem changes The merging of the mechanical and digital worlds has resulted in a slew of new technologies and players entering the sector. It has also led to new business models driven by connectivity. Some of these are touched on below. Vehicle ownership and on-demand business models Compulsory car ownership is now less of a given with the availability of smart mobility services such as ridehailing and sharing, on-demand goods transportation and peer-to-peer car rentals. Access to vehicle data Most vehicles today come with an onboard diagnostic system to give owners and technicians access to realtime data on the various sub-systems. This helps in identifying and fixing malfunctions. Various third-party dongles are now available which connect to this system s communication port and ensure that the vehicle is IoT ready. This makes it possible to deliver diverse services to vehicles via apps, driven in large part by the access to vehicle data. Drivers in turn are used to receiving information relating to the vehicle s performance and real-time traffic updates, as well as entertainment. Vehicles as software platforms The automotive ecosystem increasingly resembles the one for smartphones. New features and functions can be delivered to vehicles by over-the-air updates, circumventing the need to buy a new model or replace parts as vehicles become the platform where functionality and features can be enhanced with software updates and installing apps. With connected cars and application programming interfaces, developers can create apps and deliver services. Push towards fully autonomous vehicles The goal of having fully autonomous vehicle systems has thrown up a host of challenges which are currently being worked on. These include the technological challenges involved with integrating multiple technologies, as well as the need to solve issues around reliability, safety and network security. Another key is to understand the limitations of sensor systems and networks. Compliance with testing and regulatory

3 82 Feature Watch and listen TABLE 1. Acquisitions in the IoA space Company Acquisition Value ($) Date Description Intel Mobileye 15.3 billion Samsung June 2017 Digital vision for autonomous vehicles. Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) tools surround vision, sensor fusion, mapping and driving policy products. Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) relationships Honda, BMW and Volvo. Itseez May 2016 Real-world computer imaging for embedded systems to be used in deeplearning-based computer vision applications, including autonomous driving. Yogitech April 2016 ADAS, robotics and autonomous machines for automotive and industrial. Arynga April 2016 Offers an over-the-air software update platform for vehicles. Acquired by Wind River (Intel subsidiary). Harman 8 billion November International 2016 Qualcomm NXP 46 billion October 2016 Verizon Fleetmatics 2.4 billion GM Connected car systems such as embedded infotainment, telematics, audio and security. Harman aspires to move into ADAS. Largest chipmaker in the auto industry. This deal has not closed and uncertainties exist due to ongoing legal disputes. August 2016 Telematics SaaS. Telogis June 2016 Cloud-based mobile enterprise software for fleet management and logistics. Multiple OEM relationships Ford, Volvo, GM, Isuzu and Mack. Hughes Telematics June 2012 First telematics acquisition by Verizon Cruise Automation Over 1 billion Cisco Jasper 1.4 billion BMW, Daimler, Audi March 2016 February 2016 Developer of autonomous vehicle technology. Internet of Things platform which serves different verticals including connected cars. Powers AT&T s connected car platform. Allows car companies to offer (and monetise) third-party services and the data streams which come with them. HERE 3 billion August 2015 Mapping and location service (from Nokia). TABLE 2. Partnerships in the IoA space Companies Date Description Volvo Autoliv June 2017 Created a combined venture (Zenuity) to develop self-driving software to run on Nvidia s processing units. Toyota Nvidia May 2017 Toyota will use Nvidia's processing units to power autonomous car systems. Microsoft March 2017 Patent licensing agreement. Lyft NuTonomy June 2017 Pilot in Boston where NuTonomy's driverless cars may be hailed using the Lyft app. Jaguar Land Rover June 2017 JLR will provide vehicles and $25 million investment. Waymo May 2017 GM January 2016 Joint venture and $500 million investment. Fiat Chrysler Waymo December 2016 Waymo will fit Pacifica minivans with autonomous technology. Volkswagen LG July 2016 Will jointly work on a new connected car service platform. frameworks is another requirement. Finally, a better understanding of how humans interact with such autonomous systems is necessary. Shift in value chain This technological shift is not without economic costs to incumbent business models. A PwC study estimates that revenues from connected cars will increase from $52.5 billion in 2017 to $155.9 billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate of 24.3%. Overall for the auto industry between 2015 and 2030, it is estimated that (shared mobility + digital services + suppliers of new tech/software) which corresponds to the technologies we are looking at will have the following shares of revenues and profits. Revenues were 3% (approximately $5 trillion) in 2015 and are predicted to increase to 19% (approximately $7.8 trillion) in Meanwhile, profits were 4% (approximately $400 billion) in 2015 and are predicted to rise to 36% (approximately $600 billion) by M&A and partnerships Some notable acquisitions and partnerships related to the IoA are listed in Table 1 and Table 2, respectively. The

4 Watch and listen Feature 83 FIGURE 1. Taxonomy showing hierarchical technology categories numbers indicate total patent equivalents published in the last 10 years Braking 1,573 Autonomous 21,746 Vision 3,073 Driving 876 Routing & naviga... 5,162 Accident avoidance 2,914 Infotainment 9,872 Cameras 2,051 Lidar 882 Radar 764 Connected tech 35,730 Navigation 9,992 IoA 99,254 Network security 11,180 Parking assistance 2,664 Traffic information 3,227 Driver assistance 16,041 Emergency services 5,225 Telematics 29,775 Fleet management 740 Traffic management 10,684 On-board diagnos... 1,826 Predictive maint acquiring companies comprise semiconductor chip makers, incumbent auto behemoths, telecoms providers and enterprise software providers. The motivation for each of these players varies. The market for chips for personal computers has reached the end of its life. While semiconductor companies have cashed in on the boom for smartphone chips, this market is now saturated. As a result, semiconductor companies are laying large bets on the auto sector to power their future growth by manufacturing automotive chips. For the incumbent auto companies, acquisitions are a way of adapting to the imminent changes in the value chain and ensuring that they are well positioned to grow their top and bottom lines. Enterprise software providers see an opportunity in employing their core competence to actively participate in the auto sector. There are some must-haves to successfully providing digital services to vehicles, one of which is a software management platform. These are typically vertical agnostic. Early reports indicate that the connected car vertical is a significant sector for the providers of such platforms. For telecoms players, acquisitions are a way of generating new revenue streams by providing services for the auto sector over their existing networks. IoA taxonomy In order to analyse who owns the patented technologies related to the IoA, we organised them into a hierarchical taxonomy. The taxonomy and the technology categories are laid out in Figure 1. The categories themselves are specified using different patent parameters, combined to form queries like those used in patent searches. We mapped the patents published in the last 10 years to this taxonomy. The numbers indicated are the patent equivalents which matched each of the nodes or categories in the taxonomy. Using a taxonomy helps to provide a structured view of the patents addressing the different technologies in the IoA. It also enables easy drill-down to provide a closer look at specific subcategories. Since a patent document may address multiple technologies, it is possible that it could be present in multiple categories. The hierarchical relationship is always maintained, with all the patents in each of the child nodes being necessarily present in the parent. We identified a fairly large set of 99,254 patent equivalents related to the IoA. These further propagate through the taxonomy categorisation, as shown in Figure 1. Patent quality At various points in this article, we refer to patent quality and so-called high-quality patents. A quick note about what each term means. We have devised a patent rating that ranks each patent out of five, which we call the patent quality rating or star rating. It is a composite metric based on studies to determine the characteristics of valuable patents. These studies examine a set of litigated patents and have correlated the factors that make them successful at withstanding legal challenges.

5 84 Feature Watch and listen FIGURE 2. Top patent holders in each technology category Braking (1,573) GM (64) Ford (55) Waymo LLC (42) Autonomous (21,746) Samsung (275) Toyota (274) Hyundai (246) Driving (876) GM (79) Waymo LLC (49) Toyota (42) Routing and navigation (5,162) Waymo LLC (167) Bosch (89) Toyota (88) Camera (2,051) Waymo LLC (143) Toyota (68) GM (48) Vision (3,073) Waymo LLC (143) Toyota (88) Bosch (84) Lidar (882) Waymo LLC (101) Toyota (60) Ford (32) IoA (99,254) Denso (2,874) Toyota (2,659) Hyundai (2,355) Connected tech (35,730) Denso (108) Hyundai (749) Toyota (720) Network security (11,180) Hyundai (288) Denso (275) GM (244) Parking assistance (2,664) Bosch (221) Hyundai (81) Toyota (71) Accident avoidance (2,914) Denso (210) Toyota (185) Mitsubishi (78) Infotainment (9,872) Hyundai (271) LG (177) Denso (176) Navigation (9,992) Hyundai (225) Denso (198) GM (123) Traffic information (3,227) Toyota (113) Denso (81) Continental (59) Driver assistance (16,041) Bosch (865) Toyota (820) Hyundai (642) Radar (764) Waymo LLC (47) GM (21) Ford (19) Emergency services (5,225) Hyundai (142) Denso (104) GM (89) Telematics (29,775) Toyota (1,162) Bosch (1,141) Hyundai (900) Fleet management (740) United Parcel Service (32) GE (15) Boeing (12) Crown Equip Corp (12) Traffic management (10,684) Aisin (386) Toyota (356) Denso (293) Onboard diagnostics (1,826) Bosch (68) GM (49) Hyundai (42) Predictive maintenance (873) Toyota (64) Bosch (57) Scania (56) The rating we use incoroporates the findings of these studies. Some of the factors included in our patent quality metric include the number of forward citations, number of backward citations, number of years for expiry, prosecution time, number of claims, length of the specification, number of family members and geographical coverage. We have rationalised the weights used for each of these factors to reduce the effect of anomalies. Patents which score three or more based on this ranking are deemed to be of high quality. Notwithstanding the fact that there are differing views on what constitutes an ideal rating system for patents, our rating formula gives us a basis to compare patents and portfolios. Of the 99,254 patent equivalents identified addressing the IoA, 5,309 are deemed high quality (quality rating three or more) based on our rating.

6 Watch and listen Feature 85 Top patent holders The top patent holders in each technology category are shown in Figure 2, with their individual holdings in the category. The top 20 patent holders are listed in Table 3. The heat map representation indicates the patent holders relative ranking in each technology category (greens = higher; reds = lower). Additional findings from Table 3 indicate that the portfolios of incumbent auto companies emphasise telematics patents. A significant portion of BMW s portfolio addresses telematics. Bosch holds a greater number of patents in parking assistance compared to other players, while its holdings in network security are the lowest among the leaders. Aisin is the number one holder of patents related to traffic management. Meanwhile Denso, though top-ranked overall, has comparitively few patents in autonomous technologies. Table 4 summarises the leading companies in each of the top-level technology categories of the taxonomy. We list the top patent holders for each category, the highest TABLE 3. Top patent holders showing total assets held overall and in each technology category the heat map also indicates the assignee s relative ranking in each technology category (greens = higher; reds = lower) Patent holders Connected car technologies Telematics Autonomous technologies Network security Traffic management Denso (2,873) 1, Toyota (2,567) 720 1, Hyundai (2,355) Bosch (1,765) 246 1, GM (1,585) LG (1,226) Aisin (1,212) Mitsubishi (1,211) Continental (1,062) Honda (1,009) Panasonic (998) Daimler (947) Ford (914) Nissan (888) Alpine Electronics (881) Samsung (865) Pioneer (843) Hitachi (807) BMW (733) Clarion (669) Parking assistance TABLE 4. IoA quick facts on key players Key technologies Connected car technologies Number of Top patent holders Top cited companies Holders of high-quality patents equivalents 35,730 Denso, Hyundai, Toyota, GM, Mitsubishi, LG, Continental, Hitachi, Tokai Rika, Bosch Telematics 29,775 Toyota, Bosch, Hyundai, GM, Denso, Continental, Daimler, Ford, BMW, Audi Autonomous technologies Network security Traffic management Parking assistance 21,746 Samsung, Toyota, Hyundai, Waymo LLC, Bosch, Honda, Daimler, Seiko, Ford, GM 11,180 Hyundai, Denso, GM, Toyota, Continental, Samsung, LG, Mitsubishi, Tokai Rika, Bosch 10,684 Aisin, Toyota, Denso, Bosch, Hyundai, Continental, LG, Mitsubishi, GM, Daimler 2,664 Bosch, Hyundai, Toyota, Valeo, Audi, Daimler, Ford, GM, Volkswagen, BMW Toyota, Denso, GM, FORD, Hyundai, Honda, IBM, Bosch, Continental, Mitsubishi Toyota, GM, Ford, Bosch, Denso, Hyundai, Honda, Continental, Audi, IBM Toyota, Google, Ford, Samsung, Bosch, Hyundai, Honda, GM, IBM, Boeing GM, Ford, Toyota, Hyundai, Denso, IBM, Samsung, Continental, Bosch, Honda Toyota, Denso, IBM, Bosch, GM, Honda, Ford, Aisin, Continental, Google Bosch, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, Audi, GM, Hyundai, BMW, Nissan, Denso Ford, GM, Toyota, IBM, Honda, Hyundai, Denso, Google, Samsung, Qualcomm GM, Toyota, Ford, Magna International, Nissan, Autoconnect Holdings LLC, Waymo LLC, Denso, Honda, American Vehicular Sciences Waymo LLC, irobot, GM, Symbotic LLC, Ford, Boeing, Samsung, Toyota, John Deere Autoconnect Holdings LLC, GM, AT&T, Elwha, Cisco, Sony, Magna International, Microsoft, Samsung, Toyota Autoconnect Holdings LLC, Muddy River Series 97 of Allied Security Trust I, Toyota, Magna International, GM, Waymo LLC, Aisin, Inrix Inc, Microsoft, Here Global BV Autoconnect Holdings LLC, Toyota, Ford, Auto Director Technologies Inc, Bosch, Waymo LLC, Cloudparc Inc, Gamba Group Ltd, GM, Aisin

7 86 Feature Watch and listen ranked companies with respect to being forward-cited by the patents in the category and finally the top companies in terms of high-quality patents held in each of the categories. Additional findings from Table 4 include that GM figures as a holder of high-quality patents across the different top-level technology categories. IBM appears in the list of holders of high-quality patents in connected car technologies interestingly it is one of the top forward-cited companies by patents in four out of the five technology categories. Cisco holds high-quality patents related to network security in this area. Finally, a couple of companies with smaller portfolios but with high-quality patents are Cloudparc in parking assistance and Inrix in traffic management. Patent publishing trends The patent publishing trends for the IoA is given in Figure 3. This has been broken out by the top-level technology categories as well as the sub-categories in Figures 4 through 7. Below is what we can glean from studying the various timelines: The sharp upward trend in published patents in this area began in FIGURE 3. Patent publishing trends in the IoA space 20,000 Growth rate Number of applications 18, % Number of equivalents 15,000 10,000 5,000 6,068 5, , , , , , , , % 100% 0% % Percentage Publication year % FIGURE 4. Patent publishing trends by top-level technology categories 7,000 6,868 6,000 Parking assistance Network security Telematics Traffic management Autonomous Connected tech 6,209 5,501 Number of patent equivalents 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1, ,014 2,736 2,098 1,659 1,690 1,706 1,618 1,492 1,524 1,436 1,436 1,344 1,455 1, Publication year 3,809 2,755 1,963 1,011 1, ,364 4,682 4,782 3,610 3,693 2,546 2,079 1,822 1,537 1,348 1,602 1,

8 Watch and listen Feature 87 The surge in the filing of patents in the IoA has been led by connected car technologies, followed by telematics and autonomous technologies. The increase in patents published in connected car technologies has been driven mainly by navigation and infotainment patents. The increase in telematics patents is primarily due to a sharp increase in driver assistance patents. The growth of patents in autonomous technologies is largely due to patent activity in the sub-categories of routing and navigation, followed by vision. The overall patent publishing trends for the top patent holders is shown in Figure 8. Surprisingly the trend FIGURE 5. Patent publishing trends for connected car technologies sub-categories 2,000 1,800 Navigation Traffic information Infotainment Accident avoidance 1,848 1,947 1,795 1,600 1,750 Number of patent equivalents 1,400 1,200 1, Publication year ,135 1,044 1,239 1, FIGURE 6. Patent publishing trends for telematics sub-categories 3,000 2,500 Driver assistance Onboard diagnostics Fleet management Emergency services Predictive maintenance 2,446 Number of patent equivalents 2,000 1,500 1, Publication year 1,137 1, ,

9 88 Feature Watch and listen FIGURE 7. Patent publishing trends for autonomous technologies sub-categories 1,400 1,200 Vision Driving Routing and navigation Braking 1,211 Number of patent equivalents 1, Publication year FIGURE 8. Patent publishing trends for the top holders FIGURE 9. Patents published by geography numbers indicated are unique applications Honda Continental Aisin Number of equivalents Publication year Mitsubishi LG GM Bosch Hyundai Toyota Denso Patent holder China 39,981 United States 23,039 Japan 19,387 South Korea 13,034 Patent Cooperation Treaty filings 9,800 Germany 9,177 European Patent Office 8,144 Canada 1,447 France 1,094 Others 7,358

10 Watch and listen Feature 89 line for Denso, the top-ranked patent holder, is shown to be sharply down from 2009 onwards. The publishing trajectories for Hyundai, Toyota and Bosch trend upwards beginning in Geographical spread of published patents The breakdown of patents published by jurisdiction is given in Figure 9, with the number shown referring to unique applications. With regard to the China filings 12,655 of these are for utility models with a term of 10 years from the date of filing. This constitutes around 32% of the total, with the remainder 27,326 applications being for utility inventions. Figure 10 shows the filing of the top patent owners by jurisdiction. Toyota, Denso, Bosch, Mitsubishi, Aisin and Continental are covered for technologies related to this area, with filings in multiple jurisdictions. Toyota and Bosch also have a significant number of Patent Cooperation Treaty filings. The two US companies on the list GM and Ford have relatively less worldwide coverage. Apart from the United States, they have filed in Germany and China. FIGURE 10. Patents published top holders by jurisdiction Russia France Jurisdiction United Kingdom European Patent Office World Intellectual Property Office China Korea , Germany United States Japan , , ,782 2, , Toyota Denso Hyundai Bosch GM Ford Mitsubishi Aisin Continental LG Assignees TABLE 5. Holders of high-quality patents across all technology categories Assignees High-quality holdings Total holdings Denso 110 2,873 4% Toyota 196 2,567 8% Bosch 46 1,765 3% GM 225 1,585 14% LG 50 1,226 4% Aisin 47 1,212 4% Mitsubishi 31 1,211 3% Continental 42 1,062 4% Honda 77 1,009 8% Panasonic % Ford % Nissan % Alpine Electronics % Samsung % Hitachi % Clarion % Fujitsu % Sony % IBM % Qualcomm % GE % Waymo LLC % Boeing % Harman Intl % Here Global BV % %age highquality holdings Assignees High-quality holdings Total holdings Google % Magna Intl % Microsoft % irobot % Intel % Verizon % AT&T % Honeywell % Apple % John Deere % Autoconnect Holdings % United Parcel Service % Allstate % Elwha % Symbotic LLC % State Farm % Inrix % Telecommunication Systems % irobot Defense Holdings % American Vehicular Sciences % Witricity % Emerging Automotive % Gogoro % Oshkosh % Muddy River Series % %age highquality holdings

11 90 Feature Watch and listen FIGURE 11. Percentage of high-quality patents in each category Braking (134) Waymo LLC (21) GM (13) irobot (11) IoA (5,309) GM (225) Toyota (196) Ford (126) Autonomous (919) Waymo LLC (79) irobot (57) GM (36) Connected tech (1,525) GM (74) Denso (49) Magna Int (49) Network security (864) Autoconnect Holdings (54) GM (27) AT&T (24) Parking assistance (171) Autoconnect Holdings (26) Toyota (12) Ford (11) Driving (146) GM (26) Waymo LLC (21) irobot (13) Routing and navigation (502) Waymo LLC (73) irobot (41) GM (19) Vision (336) Waymo LLC (62) irobot (30) GM (17) Accident avoidance (222) Autoconnect Holdings(30) Magna Int (16) GM (15) Infotainment (548) Magna Int (36) Autoconnect Holdings (34) GM (29) Navigation (563) Magna Int (36) GM (24) Autoconnect Holdings (14) Traffic information (238) Autoconnect Holdings (26) GM (15) American Vehicular Sciences (14) Driver assistance (1,294) Toyota (88) Magna Int (73) GM (61) Camera (301) Waymo LLC (62) irobot (27) GM (14) Lidar (170) Waymo LLC (45) irobot (21) GM (10) Radar (138) Waymo LLC (26) irobot (19) Honeywell (6) Emergency services (463) Autoconnect Holdings (56) Magna Int (14) Ford (12) Telematics (2,858) GM (133) Toyota (116) Ford (90) Traffic management (905) Autoconnect Holdings (49) Muddy River Trust (33) Toyota (30) Fleet management (164) United Parcel Service (19) Oshkosh (7) GE (5) Onboard diagnostics (238) GM (12) Innova Electronics Corp (12) Verizon (11) Predictive maintenance (94) GM (6) Scania (6) Ford (5) High-quality patents in category >15% 10%-15% 8%-10% 4%-7% Patent quality by company and technology categories In the complete set of nearly 100,000 patent equivalents addressing the IoA, we identifed 5,309 high-quality patent equivalents (quality rating of three or more on a scale of five). By mapping these high-quality patents we can determine the number of such patents in each technology category, as well as the holders of these valuable patents. The results of this exercise are displayed in Figure 11. The colour coding indicates the percentage of high-value patents in each category to the total number in the category. Various sub-categories under autonomous technologies have a large number of highquality patents. Likewise, the patents in telematics and its sub-categories have a relatively large proportion of high-quality patents. The overall list of the top high-quality patent holders is given in Table 5. There are more than a few companies on the list with modest patent portfolios addressing this area, but with a high percentage of high-quality patents. Figure 11 and Table 5 point to one way in which patent ratings may be used to identify companies holding high-quality patents in technology areas of interest. This may be useful when looking for companies

12 Watch and listen Feature 91 Action plan The proliferation of new technology in the auto sector is giving rise to the idea of an Internet of Automobiles. How original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers respond in IP terms to this new dynamic will help to determine whether they succeed in a rapidly changing industry: OEMs should consider partnerships with technology companies or select acquisitions to understand and develop the new technologies in a reasonable timeframe. This in turn will enable them to introduce advanced systems and features in their vehicles and subsequently to build capabilities to manufacture fully autonomous vehicles. OEMs should also look to cross-license or to acquire key intellectual property to complement their existing patent portfolios. Rather than become providers of in-car services such as music and films, OEMs should connect their vehicles to a platform with the necessary application programming interfaces. These services can be provided by apps developed for the platform by third-party developers. OEMs should take advantage of the connected platform and use the data gathered from their customers to provide them with needed apps and services. Suppliers should adapt to the changes in the value chain to supply OEMs with necessary software and cloud services. to acquire patents from. Conversely, comparing the patent holdings of different companies working in a given technology area and comparing the relative strengths of their portfolios, may suggest companies to approach to either sell to or license out patents. A new approach Avanci, the IoT patent pool formed in 2016, has identified connected cars as a sector on which to focus. This points to a need and appetite for patent transactions in the sector. The partnership between Microsoft and Toyota announced earlier this year is essentially a patent licensing agreement (Table 2). Companies such as Lyft which have been actively partnering with different players in the auto sector, see the need to develop their own intellectual property as well. It recently announced a new self-driving division to develop its own autonomous ride-hailing technology. Acquisitions are sometimes driven by the need to access relevant patents for strategic reasons. For example HERE acquired by BMW, Daimler and Audi from Nokia has a large percentage of high-quality patents in its portfolio of mapping and location patents (Table 1, Table 5). A survey of this data therefore suggests that patents acquire added significance in sectors which are undergoing rapid changes and where new technologies and business models are being introduced. For that reason, the IoA sector remains one to watch. Murari Venkataraman is director, technology, Vijaya Krishna is a senior IP analyst and George Koomullil is the founder and CEO at Relecura, San Francisco, United States