User:MQuentin/Questel (company)

Questel is a software company and a service provider for the intellectual property, trademark and innovation sectors, with offices in 28 countries and headquarters in Paris, France. The company provides software and services in fields of search, analysis and management. It is involved throughout the innovation life cycle including idea management, invention management as well as writing assistance, translation, international filing and renewal of patents and trademarks. Currently, more than 400 employees are shareholders in the company. Questel aims to create sustainable value for all its stakeholders while being responsible towards the economy, society and the environment. For this, the company has defined a 5-year CSR plan and is currently working towards B-Corporation certification. In 2021, Questel SAS won the EcoVadisgold medal, proof of its involvement in CSR initiatives and actions. Thanks to a successful acquisition strategy and multiple LBOs, Questel is now "close to unicorn status".

Origin
In the 1970s, while the United States was implementing a national policy for the circulation of Scientific and technical information, notably by launching MEDLINE, France wanted to develop its skills in the field of information in order to ensure national independence on these strategic issues. To work on these issues, the National Office of Scientific and Technical Information (BNIST) was created in 1973, before becoming the Interministerial mission for scientific and technical information (MIDIST) in 1979. It was at this time that the structure oriented its policy towards the implementation of a "national server center » " on the recommendations of the Aigrain-Dejou report.

This operation will be entrusted to Télésystèmes, a subsidiary of the group that will become France Telecom. June 22, 1979, the Questel server was launched. At first interested parties, the structure received government subsidies of several million francs per year (132 million francs for the period 1978-1986).

The structure which was until then a division of Télésystèmes becomes an independent structure in 1989 while remaining a subsidiary of the France Telecom group. The company expands by acquiring its American competitor Orbit and takes the name Questel.Orbit.

At the end of the 1990s, its owner tried to sell the company but was unable to do so, and it was finally in 2000 that the newly created Intelligence Property Group bought 80% of the company's shares, with France Telecom retaining the remaining 20% for some time before selling them.

LBO
Since its creation, Questel has completed four LBOs. In 2008, Questel was supported by the European investor Syntegra Capital,. In 2015, after a long process, a secondary LBO allows Raise and CAPZA (formerly Capzanine), two French growth capital funds, to take over from Syntegra in this former France Télécom spin-off. Three years later, a third LBO allowed IK Investment Partners to enter the capital of Questel,. This operation was carried out in the context of strong internal growth and external growth operations with the acquisition of the American companies ITIP and MultiLing. In 2020, Eurazeo invested in the company alongside Raise and IK Investment Partners in order to support Questel in its growth strategy, in new markets, new geographical areas and new businesses.

Location
In addition to its headquarters in Paris, Questel has regional offices in Alexandria (for the USA), Singapour(for Asia Pacific), Tokyo(for Japan) and Shanghai (for China). It also has offices in France, Germany, Italy, Tunisia, India, Taiwan, South Korea, Canada, Brazil, Colombia and Peru.

In France, Questel has four locations, in Paris (headquartersheadquarters), Sophia-Antipolis (Research and developmen t), Montpellier (Open innovation) and Grenoble (Consulting).

Acquisitions
Since the mid-2000s, Questel has been actively acquiring companies of all sizes to strengthen its presence in specific markets such as patent and trademark portfolio search, analysis and management tools (Gem 360, Intellixir , ULT , NRI Cyber Patent , AboutInnovation.com ), IP consulting and services (Avenium , Concur IP ), fee management and international patent filing (ITIP ProFiciency , , Direct Validation ), translation services (Multiling ), trademark filing and renewal (Brandstock , RenewalsDesk ) and innovation management (Expernova , Yoomap ). In 2021, Questel maintained its policy by acquiring :


 * doeLegal, a provider of tools for the legal operations of companies ;
 * innosabi, a leading global provider of software solutions for idea management and collaborative innovation ;
 * NovumIP, an intellectual property technology group composed of Pavis and Novagraaf ;
 * Morningside, a company that equips organizations with end-to-end language and intellectual property solutions.

Products and services
Based on the Orbit.com database and a SaaS software suite, Questel's solutions are grouped into two main categories: business and technology intelligence for patents and trademarks, strategic intelligence for innovation and intellectual asset management.

Questel also offers a complete range of services to support its customers throughout the innovation cycle.

In 1996, the first online patent search service ever developed, named Qpat.com, is created by Questel. In 2010, Orbit.com is designed and replaces Qpat.com. Two years later, Questel begins eLearning courses on intellectual property. By 2014, the company will design a multitude of services and software:


 * 2014: Orbit IP Business Intelligence, a data analysis tool to assist in decision making ;
 * 2015: Orbit Express, a tool for easy patent search and patent database ;
 * 2016: Orbit Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) . et Orbit Trademark for trademark research, analysis and monitoring ;
 * 2017: Orbit Chemistry, for intellectual property professionals in the field of organic chemistry, pharmaceuticals and life sciences ;
 * 2018: Orbit BioSequence, allows the search of amino acids and DNA sequences in Orbit Intelligence ;
 * 2019: Orbit Innovation replaced by the softwareinnosabi Insight and Orbit Partnering replaced by innosabi Partner ;
 * 2020: Orbit Capture, Orbit Blockchain for blockchain-based timestamping and protection, and Orbit Tech (replaced by the collaborative platform innosabi Tech).

Questel server (1979)
Questel is a server that provides access to databases created by third-party producers in various fields. In the 1980s and 1990s, it helped transform the archiving and document management processes by providing access to digitized information, , , , ,. When it was launched in 1979, Questel made available to its users a dozen French bibliographic databases as well as Chemical Abstracts Service. Access to the server, located in Valbonne-Sophia-Antipolis ,is made through th transpac network and the Mistral software.

Like most servers available at the time, access to Questel is not free and includes several elements: an entry fee (in the form of an annual subscription, 1,290 francs in 1992 for example); a cost proportional to the duration of the connection, which varies according to the database consulted ; a surcharge for consulting references; and special conditions for options (0.70 francs for saving a result, for example, again in 1992).

QPat service (1996)
In the early 1980s, as part of a trilateral agreement, the European Patent Office (EPO), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Japan Patent Office (JPO) agreed to make all their non-confidential patent databases available,.

For a marginal cost, this data became freely available to the public on the Internet. The information made available included the full text and images of patents from around the world. The availability of this information opened up new opportunities for commercial search services.

Questel then launched the first ever online patent search service in 1996. This service provided access to a database of over 1.8 million documents, called QPat, containing all patents issued between January 1974 and March 1996. The service allowed for a search of patent titles and abstracts as well as access to the full text of the document, delivery and sending of digital copies, and the provision of an automatic watch service.

Orbit Intelligence and Orbit trademark
Orbit Intelligence and Orbit trademark are applications dedicated to economic and technological watch for trademarks and patents. They provide access to publications from over 110 national patent authorities and 126 trademark authorities. The information is normalized and restructured to easily allow simple or complex search (Boolean or similarity), customized analysis (diagram, scatter plot, radar, networks, cartography, etc.), sharing and automatic monitoring.

Orbit Invention and Orbit Innovation
Orbit Invention is a platform that promotes the development of an idea through challenges and peer reviews, combined with a step-by-step internal validation process. Orbit Innovation is a strategic foresight application that allows you to research and analyze the innovation of future partners, suppliers, customers or competitors.

Orbit Asset
Orbit Asset is a portfolio management application for all types of intellectual assets. The software allows to structure content by products, entities or business areas, to automate renewals, to facilitate administrative tasks and to evaluate assets in real time to facilitate strategic decision making.

A one-stop shop for services
Questel also offers a range of services throughout the innovation cycle to support its clients in the different stages of patent and trademark creation and management. These services accompany the entire life cycle of an asset: state of the art (prior art and freedom to operate), drafting and translation of claims, response to an examination report, international filing and renewals.