How to Play (and Win) in the Wearables Market

According to industry analyst firm CCS Insight, the wearables market could be worth more than $25 billion by the end of 2019.2 That projected growth is attributed to more than just wrist-mounted devices: the smart clothing segment alone rose 58.6 percent in the first quarter of 2018.3 Although some segments of the wearables market are slowly becoming saturated, significant profit growth is possible in other segments of the wearables market. [...]recent forecasts conducted by the International Data Corporation (IDC), a leading global provider of market intelligence in consumer technology markets, project strong year-over-year growth through 2021 for the smart clothing and eyewear segments.4 Other wearable sectors (e.g., jewelry, implantables, pet-tech, enviro-trackers) are also expected to see an upward trend.5 But how might a company best prepare for success in the wearables market? Trends in the wearables market suggest that trivial modifications to existing products are likely to produce only incremental benefits and, thus, are not worth pursuit.6 To that end, there has been an overall decline in so-called "basic" wearables and a rather significant increase in higherpriced, "smarter" wearables.7 Indeed, some analysts believe that much of the future growth in the wearables market will relate to "[a]dditional sensors, years of underlying data, and improved algorithms. By using Patent Prosecution Highway programs in various countries,13 an applicant that has filed in the United States and foreign countries may then use the allowance of the claims of any one application to expedite the prosecution and allowance of corresponding claims filed in other countries.