The present invention is related to patent-related tools, and
methodologies involving those tools, for assisting in all stages of the
merger and acquisition process. The IPAM server may be used in
conjunction with the tools and methodologies to aid in the merger and
acquisition process. These tools or methods include, but are not limited
to, a topographic map, a technology classification, a SIC classification,
a radar diagram, a patent citation tree, a citation root tree, a citation
count report, a citation frequency graph, a citation frequency report, a
patent count/year, an application count/year, a patent aging graph, a
U.S. primary class/subclass, an international patent class, an assignee
patent count report by primary class/subclass, a patent count graph by
number of patents, a top assignees primary class/subclass by percent of
total, a months to issue patents, a features grouping, a document
annotation, an inventor patent count/assignee, an inventor patent count
graph, and inventor data.