The Unique Role of Patent Information in Industry Innovation

In this CEIPI IP Management Talk, the focus is a deep and practical exploration of how patent information can be strategically used to drive innovation in a highly traditional yet technologically evolving field: the steel industry. Host Alexander J. Wurzer welcomes Sascha Kamhuber, a mechanical engineer turned IP data expert, who specializes in making patent information accessible and useful for R&D professionals. IP Subject Matter Expert of the IP Business Academy Sascha Kamhuber offers insights into the development of a niche patent information tool — the SteelMaker platform — and how it addresses industry-specific challenges.

From Engineering to IP: Bridging Technical Depth with Legal Insight

Kamhuber’s journey into IP began on the technical side. As a developer working on tools like fiber-cutting scissors, he frequently encountered the question: Are we allowed to do this? This led to his first contact with patent law. Frustrated by the dryness and inaccessibility of traditional IP tools, he sought to innovate: how could engineers and R&D teams more intuitively use IP data? His solution was to lower the technical and usability barriers that have historically hindered patent engagement from non-IP professionals.

Kamhuber now works on building systems that allow seamless access to complete global patent data. This includes not just documents from major jurisdictions but also obscure ones like those from Saudi Arabia or historical Japanese patents. The key insight here is that incomplete datasets can undermine freedom-to-operate analyses, nullity actions, and R&D strategy.

Patent Databases: Beyond Google Patents and Espacenet

While many users rely on tools like Google Patents or Espacenet, Kamhuber emphasizes that these systems provide only partial visibility. For professional use, particularly in high-stakes scenarios like patent invalidation or infringement litigation, relying on full-text, machine-translated, and jurisdiction-complete data is critical. His system integrates machine translations, PDFs, drawings, and legal statuses to ensure coverage and reliability.

He also stresses the importance of harmonizing international patent terminology and units. For example, tensile strength may be described in PSI in U.S. patents and megapascals in European ones, which leads to confusion unless data is normalized. This harmonization also includes recalculating hardness measures across different scales (Brinell, Vickers, Knoop, etc.), allowing for better comparison and precision in search.

Why the Steel Industry?

Wurzer questions why Kamhuber would focus on steel — a sector many view as low-tech or stagnant. The answer lies in both volume and complexity. Nearly 1 million of the 8 million patents filed annually relate to steel in some way. From coatings and compositions to new forming processes, steel remains a highly innovative material, especially under pressure from globalization, cost competition, and environmental requirements.

Furthermore, steel patents present unique challenges. They often use deliberate linguistic obfuscation to avoid easy detection. For instance, a common tactic is using obscure units or rare hardness measures to hide infringement or avoid prior art. As Kamhuber explains, this makes precision tools and expert-curated taxonomies essential.

The SteelMaker Platform: Domain-Specific Innovation in IP

Kamhuber’s company developed the SteelMaker tool, a specialized SaaS platform designed to manage patent searches, freedom-to-operate (FTO) checks, and prior art investigations specifically in the steel industry. The tool allows users to:

  • Search by exact material composition, such as 0.2–0.3% carbon or 1.1–1.4% manganese.
  • Apply unit normalization to avoid missing patents due to regional unit variations.
  • Drill down into claims, descriptions, and drawings to assess patent scope.
  • Set up workflow automation, so patent data moves directly from monitoring to relevant R&D teams with minimal friction.

A standout capability is enabling non-IP experts, like engineers, to perform targeted searches without needing to understand Boolean logic or legal phrasing. This is achieved through intuitive interfaces, pre-defined ranges for material properties, and visual cues.

The Role of Ontologies and Human Expertise

The SteelMaker system integrates AI models and curated ontologies that reflect how steel technologists actually think. These ontologies map different synonyms, naming conventions, and abbreviations that exist across countries and companies. For example, “ultra-high strength steel” might be described in several ways depending on the jurisdiction or company.

While AI assists in this mapping, Kamhuber emphasizes that human oversight remains critical. Engineers and IP experts collaboratively ensure that the terms used in searches reflect real-world language and evolving patent strategies. This manual adaptation is essential to stay up-to-date with changes in how patents are written.

From Monitoring to Action: The Workflow Perspective

Another core feature is workflow management. In traditional systems, R&D teams are often overwhelmed with unfiltered patent data. The SteelMaker platform uses a system that prioritizes documents, reduces redundancy, and streamlines review. It ensures that only highly relevant patent documents reach the right expert.

Kamhuber reports that this saves 80–85% of the time normally spent manually reviewing documents. Importantly, the process is customizable by organization, allowing integration into in-house databases and linking with internal IP systems.

Addressing Industry-Wide Challenges

The talk also highlights systemic challenges in the patent system:

  • Patents are written for legal protection, not comprehension. This often alienates R&D personnel.
  • Training gaps mean that most engineers are not familiar with patent analysis.
  • IP professionals and engineers speak different languages. Bridging that gap is essential for integrated innovation.

Kamhuber’s approach helps resolve these by designing a platform that adapts to the user, rather than forcing the user to adapt to the system.

Deep Dive: A Sample FTO Search

The session includes a walkthrough of a Freedom-to-Operate (FTO) search using SteelMaker. The search focuses on:

  1. Tensile strength parameters (e.g., 1300–1800 MPa).
  2. Chemical composition (e.g., 0.2–0.3% carbon, 0.5–0.6% chromium).
  3. Surface coating elements (e.g., 0.2–0.3% magnesium).
  4. Publication date filters (e.g., pre-Nov 3, 2022).

The tool narrows 13,000 documents to just 20 highly relevant patents. Key claim phrases are automatically highlighted, helping users immediately assess potential threats or opportunities.

Strategic IP Management and Global Competition

The steel industry is marked by tight margins, geopolitical shifts, and a race for lightweight, high-strength, and low-emission materials. IP plays a critical role in maintaining competitive advantage. By making patent information transparent, normalized, and actionable, tools like SteelMaker offer:

  • Earlier identification of emerging competition.
  • Defensive strategies like patent nullification based on prior art.
  • Improved collaboration between legal and technical departments.

Wurzer points out that this type of precise, scalable patent analytics should be a model for other complex industries, such as aerospace, pharmaceuticals, or advanced materials.

Conclusion: Precision, Transparency, and Innovation in IP

The session closes on a high note, emphasizing the value of blending domain-specific technical expertise with broad patent data literacy. Sascha Kamhuber and his team have demonstrated how a once-dry, rigid field like IP can be turned into a strategic asset, especially when contextualized within a specific industry.

The SteelMaker tool is more than a search engine — it is a translation layer between legal complexity and engineering clarity. This model underscores the future of IP management: not just broader access, but smarter, industry-aligned access that helps companies move faster and with more confidence.

Key Takeaways:

  • Patent data must be complete, harmonized, and contextualized.
  • Specialized tools like SteelMaker make patent intelligence usable by R&D teams.
  • The steel industry remains highly innovative, with nearly 1M patent filings annually touching the field.
  • Workflow automation and unit standardization are essential for actionable IP strategy.
  • Collaboration between IP experts and engineers is vital for value creation.