How to Define the Right Search Criteria in Emerging Technology Scouting

To explain how the Power Search works, let us use the query:

(label CONTAINS “wireless” OR label CONTAINS “energy”)

Here, ‘‘label” is the property, “CONTAINS” the operator, “wireless” and “energy” the values to be searched, and “OR” the Boolean operator. The above query returns signals whose title contains either the word ‘wireless’ or the word ‘energy’ or both.

A simplified example of the sub-themes and the corresponding queries for the automotive industry could then be as follows:

The detail on how to formulate different presets are available in the ITONICS Knowledge Base:  Power Search: Basics, Power Search: Syntactic Sugar, and Power Search: Cheat Sheet.

3. Use the Insights filter

After forming the Boolean queries for different sub-themes, you can start with the actual technology scouting process using the signals feed. This involves the process of scanning through relevant news, publications, and patents to identify potential technologies for your relevant industry. The ITONICS Insights tool is designed with several filtering options to assist users in refining search results. For more information on using filtering to narrow down a search, see this guide to the Filter Tab in the ITONICS Knowledge Base.

Let’s take the example of searching for relevant signals in the automotive industry pertaining to battery technology. A general query for this can be ((* CONTAINS "automotive" OR * CONTAINS "vehicle") AND (label CONTAINS "battery")). This query will show all the relevant signals with ‘automotive’ or ‘vehicle’ in the text and ‘battery’ used in the title.

Example of signals feed after applying different filters with a preset

The above image depicts the use of different filters applied to the query preset. This particular combination of query preset and filter provides all the English language signals related to battery technology used in the automotive sector in the last month, excluding patents.

Here, Insights has identified top companies involved in the automotive battery market, including Tesla, Ford, Stellantis, LG Chem, and Samsung.

Furthermore, if you find a signal that is relevant or interesting in the signals feed, you can convert it into an Element which is the basic building block of the ITONICS innovation content management system. Each Element created in this way has its own feed of relevant signals, thereby facilitating easy scouting in the future.

4. Combine presets and Elements

One of the most defining features of ITONICS Insights is the possibility to combine different presets to display filtered signals. Let’s take the example of autonomous driving and AR/VR (Augmented Reality/ Virtual Reality) in the automotive industry. First, you need to save the Boolean queries for both sub-themes. Let’s save the query for autonomous driving as “Autonomous driving” and AR/VR in automotive as “AR/VR in Automotive”. You can now combine these two query presets by adding them to the normal search field, as shown in the figure below.

Combining presets in this way displays signals that are relevant to both the search fields. The example here shows the signal that involves Volkswagen and Microsoft working together to bring AR into cars using HoloLens to improve autonomous driving technology, among others.

With ITONICS Insights, you can bring your technology scouting and monitoring together on one powerful platform. By saving refined search queries specific to your interests, you save time in sourcing information related to your company’s innovation projects. The ITONICS Innovation OS reduces human effort and enables you to systemize and unify your environmental scanning activities on one single point of truth where it can easily connect to subsequent phases of innovation.