Patent Gap Supply Chain Inference

Overview

This skill implements a competitive intelligence workflow: "patent gap → supply chain inference." Core insight: when target company A's product uses technology T, but A holds no patents related to T, there may be a technology-licensing or supply-chain dependency. By searching T's patent ownership to identify company B, then activating multiple verification leads, one can infer whether B has entered A's supply chain.

Critical caveat: A patent gap can also mean A protects T as a trade secret / know-how rather than through patents. Patents require public disclosure; many companies (especially in semiconductor processes, chemical formulations, pharma manufacturing) deliberately choose trade secrets. This skill explicitly evaluates this distinction before concluding supply-chain dependency.

v0.3.0 new capabilities:

• Competitive triangulation: If A's peers C₁, C₂...Cₙ also lack T's patents and all point to B, inference confidence gets a significant boost. Cross-company corroboration is one of the strongest signals.
• Reverse workflow (supplier → clients): Start from technology owner B (who holds monopoly patents in T) and identify downstream companies A₁, A₂...Aₙ that likely depend on B's technology. This is the more common investment research use case.
• Financial cross-validation: After inferring a supply-chain relationship, cross-validate against A's top-supplier disclosures, B's customer concentration data, and accounts receivable patterns. Inference without financial corroboration is capped at "medium" confidence.
• Industry-specific guidance: See references/industry-guide.md for semiconductor, pharma, new energy, consumer electronics, and materials verticals — each has different patent/trade-secret dynamics.

The skill downgrades "patents" from the sole evidence chain to an entry lead, enforcing multi-lead parallel verification, competitive triangulation, financial cross-validation, alternative-hypothesis checks, and counter-intelligence checks to prevent overconfident wrong conclusions.

When to Use

Trigger when any of the following applies:

Forward direction (patent gap → find supplier):

• Researching tech, hardware, manufacturing, pharma, or materials companies where supply chain matters
• Discovering or suspecting a company uses a technology but lacks related patents
• Explicitly asked to do patent ownership analysis, technology dependency analysis, or supply-chain inference

Reverse direction (technology owner → find clients) (NEW v0.3.0):

• A company B holds dominant/monopoly patents in a technology T and you want to identify B's downstream customers
• Investment thesis: "B is the sole/dominant supplier of T; companies using T must be B's customers"
• Asked to identify companies that depend on a specific technology or component

Trigger keywords (bilingual): 科技股研究, 行业分析, 产业链, 供应链, 供应商识别, 客户挖掘, 上下游推断, 专利缺口, 专利归属, 技术依赖, patent gap, supply chain, supplier identification, customer identification, technology dependency, competitive intelligence, reverse supply chain.

Step 0: Applicability Pre-check (mandatory)

Before running the workflow, judge whether the target type is applicable. See references/industry-guide.md for industry-specific dynamics:

When not applicable, clearly inform the user and suggest alternatives. Do not force execution.

Direction Selection (NEW v0.3.0)

Before proceeding, determine the analysis direction:

Both directions share the same verification leads, but the entry point and initial search differ. See references/workflow.md for detailed reverse-workflow operations.

Workflow Overview

The full workflow has 10 steps. Detailed operations in references/workflow.md:

1. Trigger lead identification: Confirm target company, product, technology; determine forward or reverse direction
2. Patent gap confirmation (forward) / Patent dominance confirmation (reverse): Search patent portfolio, determine gap validity or market dominance
3. Trade secret assessment: Evaluate whether gap reflects deliberate trade secret / know-how protection
4. Multi-lead parallel verification: Activate 5 leads — patent ownership, corporate affiliation, talent flow, procurement, product teardown
5. Competitive triangulation (NEW v0.3.0): Check A's peers/competitors for the same patent gap. If ≥2 peers also lack T's patents and all point to B, boost confidence.
6. Multi-lead fusion + confidence scoring: ≥2 high-confidence leads corroborating required; triangulation provides confidence multiplier
7. Financial cross-validation (NEW v0.3.0): Cross-validate inferred relationship against A's supplier disclosures / B's customer concentration / accounts receivable. Inference without financial corroboration is capped.
8. Alternative-hypothesis check: Explicitly exclude alternative explanations; see references/checklists.md
9. Counter-intelligence check: Check for shell companies / dispersed patents; see references/checklists.md
10. Output report: Relationship determination + evidence chain + triangulation result + financial corroboration + confidence + alternative hypotheses + trade secret assessment + counter-intel risk + follow-up verification

Input/Output Contract

Input:

• Target company (A for forward, B for reverse) — name / ticker
• Technology T or product P of interest (optional; may be identified during analysis)
• Analysis direction: forward or reverse (default: forward if user mentions "supplier", reverse if user mentions "customer" or "downstream")
• Known background info (optional)

Output: Supply-chain inference report, including:

• Direction: forward or reverse analysis
• Relationship determination: whether a supply-chain relationship exists + role (direct supplier / technology licensor / customer / indirect affiliation / NPE license-only)
• Trade secret assessment: likelihood + indicator breakdown
• Evidence chain: per-lead hit status + per-lead confidence + corroboration
• Triangulation result (v0.3.0): which peers confirmed the same gap + triangulation boost applied
• Financial corroboration (v0.3.0): supplier disclosure hits, customer concentration data, AR patterns, corroboration status
• Overall confidence: high / medium / low + rationale (including triangulation boost and financial cap if applicable)
• Alternative-hypothesis list: excluded + unexcluded
• Counter-intelligence risk flag: shell companies / dispersed patents
• Follow-up verification suggestions: next evidence to gather

Tool Integration

Available tools per lead (by availability priority):

When a tool is unavailable, fall back to WebSearch for public info and reduce that lead's confidence accordingly.

Key Principles

• Patents are an entry lead, not final evidence: A patent gap triggers verification but does not directly conclude
• Trade secrets must be ruled out before concluding dependency: A patent gap may reflect deliberate trade secret / know-how protection
• Procurement/teardown leads override trade secret hypothesis: Physical evidence trumps trade secret likelihood
• Competitive triangulation strengthens inference (v0.3.0): Cross-company corroboration is one of the strongest signals — a gap shared by multiple peers pointing to the same supplier is much harder to dismiss
• Financial cross-validation is required for high-confidence conclusions (v0.3.0): No supply-chain inference reaches "high" without at least one form of financial corroboration (supplier disclosure, customer concentration, or AR evidence)
• Multi-lead corroboration: ≥2 high-confidence leads corroborating required to conclude
• Explicit confidence scoring: Every lead and inference gets a confidence score (high / medium / low)
• Alternative hypotheses are mandatory: Every inference must explicitly exclude alternative explanations
• Counter-intelligence check is mandatory: Watch for shell companies / dispersed patents hiding the real supply chain

Resources

references/

• references/workflow.md: Detailed 10-step operations + reverse workflow section
• references/checklists.md: All checklists — alternative hypotheses, trade secret indicators, triangulation, financial cross-validation, counter-intelligence, confidence scoring rules
• references/industry-guide.md (NEW v0.3.0): Vertical-specific guidance for semiconductor, pharma, new energy, consumer electronics, and materials

examples/

• examples/sample-output.md: Fictional case showing the full 10-step report format
• examples/real-case.md (NEW v0.3.0): A real Chinese A-share case study with actual company names and data