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TL;DR
- Yes. Feeds and alerts, trend-radar platforms and startup databases all track a technology area automatically. They report what is new: articles, papers, filings, funding rounds.
- New is not the same as important. In the GetFocus storage backtest, hard drives out-filed solid-state storage six to one in 2001 while solid-state improved at 49.6% a year against 29.2%.
- Monitor the improvement rate of every competing technology against a baseline: the delta every month, a review and a re-scout every quarter, trigger alerts in between.
- A small team does not need to read more. It needs the one change that moves a decision, with the evidence one click away.
Yes. Four kinds of tool track a technology area automatically: feeds and alerts on news, papers and new patents; trend-radar platforms; startup and company databases; and continuous monitoring of each competing technology's improvement rate. The first three report what is new. Only the fourth reports which technology is pulling ahead, and that is the question monitoring exists to answer. The GetFocus storage backtest shows the difference: in 2001 hard drives out-filed solid-state storage six to one, while solid-state was improving at 49.6% a year against 29.2%. An alert counting new filings pointed at the loser for nine years.
Which tools track new developments in a technology area?
Each kind of tool answers a different question. Pick by the question, not by the feature list.
| Kind of tool | What it watches | What you get | What it can't tell you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feeds and alerts (Google Alerts, Inoreader, Feedly, Semantic Scholar alerts, patent watch services) | New pages, articles, papers or patent publications that match your keywords | A daily or weekly digest of new items | Whether any item changes a decision |
| Trend radars (ITONICS, Trendtracker, FIBRES) | News, patents, papers and funding, clustered into themes | A radar of trends scored on activity or maturity | Activity scores rise with hype as fast as with progress |
| Startup and company databases (Crunchbase, Dealroom, Tracxn, PitchBook) | Funding rounds, founding dates, acquisitions | Who is active and who is raising money | Funding follows attention, not improvement |
| Improvement-rate monitoring (GetFocus) | The patent citation network of every competing technology, recomputed as new filings publish | Each technology's improvement rate and maturity, the change against your baseline, and alerts on thresholds you set | Deal flow and company news: pair it with a database for those |
Feeds and alerts cost little and do their job. If the question is "what was published this week?", use one. If the question is "which of these technologies will win, and has anything changed since we decided?", counting new items cannot answer it.
Why do alerts and trend radars miss the shift that matters?
Because they count. A filing, a paper or a funding round is a vote of attention, and attention keeps gathering around the incumbent long after its rate has fallen behind.
The GetFocus storage backtest replays the record using only patents public at each date. In 2001 hard drives logged 3,316 new patent families against 580 for solid-state storage. The rate read the other way: solid-state at 49.6% a year, hard drives at 29.2%. Filings did not cross until 2010. Western Digital bought a small enterprise-flash maker for a reported $65 million in 2009, then announced the purchase of SanDisk for about $19 billion in 2015, fourteen years after the rate had flagged flash (the full case).
Backtest · Data storage · 2001–2026
An alert that counts filings points at the loser
In 2001 hard drives logged 3,316 new patent families against 580 for solid-state, which was improving at 49.6% a year against 29.2%.
What the industry filed · new patent families per year
What the rate read · improvement rate per year
Computed from patents public at each date · GetFocus backtest: HDD vs SSD
The pattern is general. In MIT research, citation-based measures predicted a domain's improvement rate and the number of patents in the domain did not (Benson & Magee, 2015). Counting is the wrong instrument. The GetFocus method reads how patents cite each other instead, through two metrics: cycle time and knowledge flow.
How often do we need to update technology monitoring if our field moves slowly?
The usual advice is a quarterly review, a deeper refresh once a year, and alerts in between. Quarterly is the right rhythm for the review. Once a year is the wrong rhythm for the list of contenders.
A slow field is not a safe one. Across 1,757 technology domains, MIT researchers found more than 80% improving at under 25% a year and the fastest at 216% (Singh, Triulzi & Magee, 2021). When your technology sits at the slow end, a challenger from the fast end compounds past it quietly. In 1990 LED lighting was improving at 32.5% a year against 8.6% for incandescent. In February 2007 GE launched a high-efficiency incandescent programme, and suspended it in December 2008 (lighting backtest).
This is the cadence GetFocus runs on every domain it monitors:
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| As patents publish | New filings enter the dataset; every improvement rate and maturity score is recomputed |
| Monthly | An executive summary of what moved against the baseline, plus fresh answers to your standing questions |
| Quarterly | An executive review of which verdicts should move, and a re-scout for newly emerging technologies |
| Any time | A trigger alert the moment a threshold you set is crossed |
The monthly report is a delta, never the same story re-argued. In a slow field many months report no change, and that is information too: the decision still stands.
How do we keep an eye on technologies that could make our products obsolete?
Start from the job your product does, not from the technologies you already know. List every technology that could do that job, including those coming from other industries: the most dangerous competitor is often not in your sector yet. Then place each one by maturity and by improvement rate.
The two numbers disagree more often than teams expect. On the GetFocus battery radar, all-solid-state is the most heavily patented route at 9,628 families, and its rate has not moved since 2022. Sodium-ion improves at about 125% a year, the fastest in the set. A tracker that counts filings flags solid-state as the threat. The rate flags sodium-ion (see the radar).
The GetFocus platform · EV batteries
Watch the rate, not the filing count
All-solid-state is the most patented route at 9,628 families, and its rate has not moved since 2022. Sodium-ion improves fastest, at about 125% a year. Hover a route for its history.
GetFocus platform · Battery Technologies · 31,644 patent families · Full radar and verdicts
Every route on the radar lands in one of four verdicts: fund, monitor, phase out or ignore. Give each threat a named owner and a trigger. A threat without a trigger gets discussed once and then forgotten.
We have a small team and too many technologies. How do we track what matters?
Don't read more. Filter harder, and make the rate the filter. A small team cannot read 31,644 battery patent families, and it does not need to. GetFocus agents read every family; the team reads the one change that matters, with the evidence behind it.
That evidence is a table: each of your questions becomes a column, each patent family a row, and every claim in the summary traces back to the families behind it. Your experts open it when a verdict moves, not every week.
"In a week with GetFocus, we achieved more than what we previously could in nine months," says Christophe Perthuisot, former SVP of R&D at Moët Hennessy (LVMH) (his story).
This applies to any team that owns a decision between competing technologies. If you only want news on a field you are not betting on, a free alert is enough.
Which tools find startups and partners working on a specific technology?
Startup databases find companies that raised money. Patent data finds everyone who is inventing, including universities, suppliers and corporates that never raise a round. Use both.
The monthly GetFocus summary reports who entered a technology and what kind of company they are. On the sodium-ion radar, the deep dives named the deployments and the control point: CATL with Changan, BYD's FinDreams with Huaihai, HiNa with JAC, and hard carbon as the anode bottleneck worth scouting. To watch what named competitors are patenting, see how to gather competitive intelligence on R&D.
FAQ
What is technology monitoring?
Continuous tracking of specific technology fields for changes that affect a decision. Scanning is broader and mostly undirected; scouting is a fast, detailed search on one specific question. Our scouting guide shows where each fits.
Is Google Alerts enough to monitor a technology?
For news on a field you follow out of interest, yes. For a decision, no: it reports mentions, and mentions measure attention, not progress.
How often should technology monitoring be updated?
Recompute as new patents publish, report the delta monthly, review and re-scout every quarter, and let trigger alerts cover the time in between.
Can patents show a new technology before the market does?
Yes. Almost every technology appears in the patent record before it reaches the market. Patent counts lag; the citation network moves years earlier, which is why GetFocus reads citations, not counts.
What does a GetFocus monitoring subscription cover?
One domain: up to 50 technologies tracked for 12 months, five platform seats, the radar, monthly deep-dive updates, trigger alerts and quarterly executive reviews (details).
