Compare the protected product with the cheapest viable design-around. The relevant return is what remains after development, licensing and enforcement costs; a broad patent portfolio alone is a weak proxy.
How companies won with Intellectual property
From the win chains in Strategy Canon case studies: what the winner did, and what its rival did at the same step.
vs. RethinkDB
MongoDB
Switching costs of MongoDB-API applications, fenced by SSPL
What it did
Rivals had to clone the API to win workloads (Azure 2016, AWS 2019, Linux Foundation 2025)
RethinkDB
Installed base moved away: signageOS replaced RethinkDB with MongoDB in 2019
Which commercially necessary feature is protected, and can a rival deliver the same customer outcome through a different design?
Who names it
Author
What they call it / where it appears
Neumann
A Taxonomy of Moats — Intellectual property
Note. The diagnostic and scenario are Strategy Canon’s analytical application. Test the firm’s benefit and exclusion mechanism separately; this category alone does not establish Power.