Patent Gap Supply Chain

Competitive intelligence workflow that infers supply-chain relationships from patent gaps. 通过"专利缺口"反推产业链关系的竞争情报工作流。Use when researching tech/hardware/manufacturing/pharma stocks, analyzing industry supply chains, identifying suppliers, investigating patent gaps (a company uses a technology but holds no related patents), or inferring supply-chain relationships from patent ownership. 触发场景：科技股研究、行业分析、产业链推断、供应商识别、专利缺口分析、专利归属查询、技术依赖分析 / Triggers: patent gap analysis, supply chain inference, supplier identification, technology dependency, competitive intelligence, tech stock research, industry analysis. The skill starts from a patent gap, activates five parallel verification leads (patent ownership, corporate affiliation, talent flow, procurement, product teardown), with built-in alternative-hypothesis checks and counter-intelligence checks, outputting a confidence-scored supply-chain inference report.

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.

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

When to Use

Trigger when any of the following applies:

• Researching tech, hardware, manufacturing, pharma, or materials companies where supply chain or technology sourcing matters
• Conducting industry analysis, supply-chain mapping, or supplier identification
• Discovering or suspecting a company uses a technology but lacks related patents (patent gap)
• Explicitly asked to do patent ownership analysis, technology dependency analysis, or supply-chain inference

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

Step 0: Applicability Pre-check (mandatory)

Before running the workflow, judge whether the target type is applicable:

Target type	Applicability	Handling
Hardware / manufacturing / pharma / materials	Strong	Proceed
Software / internet	Weak	Warn that patent protection is weak and tech is hidden; suggest code / open-source intelligence; may proceed at reduced confidence
Business-model innovation	Not applicable	Stop; suggest financial reports / prospectus / business-model analysis instead

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

Workflow Overview

The full workflow has 7 steps. Detailed operations in references/workflow.md:

1. Trigger lead identification: Confirm target A, product P, technology T; preliminarily judge whether A lacks T's patents
2. Patent gap confirmation: Search A's patent portfolio, compare against T, determine gap validity (exclude cross-licensing / acquisition inheritance / patent pools / open-source)
3. Multi-lead parallel verification: Activate 5 leads — patent ownership, corporate affiliation, talent flow, procurement, product teardown
4. Multi-lead fusion + confidence scoring: ≥2 high-confidence leads corroborating required to conclude; single lead is only a hypothesis
5. Alternative-hypothesis check: Explicitly exclude alternative explanations; see references/checklists.md
6. Counter-intelligence check: Check for abnormally dispersed patent ownership / shell-company patterns; see references/checklists.md
7. Output report: Relationship determination + evidence chain + confidence + alternative hypotheses + counter-intel risk + follow-up verification suggestions

Input/Output Contract

Input:

• Target A (company name / ticker)
• Technology T or product P of interest (optional; may be identified during analysis)
• Known background info (optional)

Output: Supply-chain inference report, including:

• Relationship determination: whether B entered A's supply chain + B's role (direct supplier / technology licensor / indirect affiliation / NPE license-only)
• Evidence chain: per-lead hit status + per-lead confidence + corroboration
• Overall confidence: high / medium / low + rationale
• Alternative-hypothesis list: excluded + unexcluded
• Counter-intelligence risk flag: whether patent ownership is abnormally dispersed / shell-company patterns exist
• Follow-up verification suggestions: next evidence to gather

Tool Integration

Available tools per lead (by availability priority):

Lead	Tools	Purpose
Patent search	tushare (patent API), PatSnap patsnap-search connector	Search A/B patents, T's patent ownership
Corporate affiliation	Tianyancha tyc-mcp, Qichacha qcc-company, Qixinbao qixinbao-mcp	A-B investment / JV / executive overlap
Listed-co data	tushare, westock-mcp, westock-tool	Financial report supplier disclosure, prospectus
Talent flow	WebSearch, job-site search	B→A technical hires
Procurement	WebSearch, gov-procurement portals, tender announcements	A's tender / supplier announcements
Product teardown	WebSearch, professional teardown reports	A's product BOM / teardown for B components

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
• 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 targets using shell companies / dispersed patents to hide the real supply chain

Resources

references/

• references/workflow.md: Detailed 7-step operations, including per-step decision rules, tool invocation, output format
• references/checklists.md: Alternative-hypothesis checklist, counter-intelligence checklist, confidence scoring rules

examples/

• examples/sample-output.md: A worked example showing the full report format for a fictional case