Assessing coreness and intermediarity of technology sectors using patent co-classification analysis: the case of Korean national R&D

Rapid technological advancements and increasing research and development (R&D) costs are making it necessary for national R&D plans to identify the coreness and intermediarity of technologies in selecting projects and allocating budgets. Studies on the coreness or intermediarity of technology sectors have used patent citations, but there are limitations to dealing with patent data. The limitations arise from the most current patents and patents that do not require citations, e.g. Korean patents. Further, few or no studies have simultaneously considered both coreness and intermediarity. Therefore, we propose a patent co-classification based method to measure coreness and intermediarity of technology sectors by incorporating the analytic network process and the social network analysis. Using IPC co-classifications of patents as technological knowledge flows, this method constructs a network of directed knowledge flows among technology sectors and measures the long-term importance and the intermediating potential of each technology sector, despite the limitations of patent-based analyses. Considering both coreness and intermediarity, this method can provide more detailed and essential knowledge for decision making in planning national R&D. We demonstrated this method using Korean national R&D patents from 2008 to 2011. We expect that this method will help in planning national R&D in a rapidly evolving technological environment.     

Using automated patent landscaping and legal geography analysis to spot biopiracy activities in the island of Hispaniola

This paper reports on an automated patent landscaping and legal geography analysis to scrutinize the biopiracy of endemic plants in the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). My analysis relies on shrubs and flowers that may be reaped without a fair and equitable distribution of benefits. My findings highlight that Western pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies' innovations may overlap sovereign states’ intellectual property rights, implying that regulatory gaps must be filled to empower local communities to benefit from biodiversity and ecosystem services. Therefore, I suggest that the island adopt effective and consistent access and benefit-sharing policies, including mechanisms that encourage environmental protection and require prior informed consent and mutually agreed terms for utilizing genetic resources. I also suggest the introduction of disclosure of origin and/or source of genetic resources in their respective patents regime to ensure that Convention on Biological Diversity regulations and other related international frameworks can be followed.     

A hybrid keyword and patent class methodology for selecting relevant sets of patents for a technological field

This paper presents a relatively simple, objective and repeatable method for selecting sets of patents that are representative of a specific technological domain. The methodology consists of using search terms to locate the most representative international and US patent classes and determines the overlap of those classes to arrive at the final set of patents. Five different technological fields (computed tomography, solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, electric capacitors, electrochemical batteries) are used to test and demonstrate the proposed method. Comparison against traditional keyword searches and individual patent class searches shows that the method presented in this paper can find a set of patents with more relevance and completeness and no more effort than the other two methods. Follow on procedures to potentially improve the relevancy and completeness for specific domains are also defined and demonstrated. The method is compared to an expertly selected set of patents for an economic domain, and is shown to not be a suitable replacement for that particular use case. The paper also considers potential uses for this methodology and the underlying techniques as well as limitations of the methodology.     

Launch of a product and patents: evidence from the US cardiovascular pharmaceutical sector

ABSTRACT

Recent literature on the role of patents in shaping competition between incumbents and new entrants shows mixed evidence, as patents can discourage entry into markets but may also encourage potential entrants by increasing profitability from research and development. The increasing use of patents as strategic weapons motivates this investigation of the impact of innovation on competition. In a case study of US pharmaceutical cardiovascular submarkets over the period 1988–1998, we use a panel probit model to study the impact of a firm’s patents and rivals’ patents in the firm’s decision to launch new products. Our results show that the number of a firm’s lagged patents encourages the firm’s entry with new products, while rivals’ initial stock of patents discourages entry, but more recent patents promote entry by opening new technological opportunities.     

Sources of inspiration? Making sense of scientific references in patents

Scientific references in patent documents can be used as indicators signaling science-technology interactions. Whether they reflect a direct ‘knowledge flow’ from science to technology is subject of debate. Based on 33 interviews with inventors at Belgian firms and knowledge-generating institutes active in nanotechnology, biotechnology and life sciences, we analyze the extent to which scientific references in patents reflect sources of inspiration. Our results indicate that scientific knowledge acts as a source of inspiration for about 50 % of the inventions. At the same time, the scientific references cited in patent documents and available in patent databases do not provide an accurate picture in this respect: 30 % of patents that were inspired by scientific knowledge do not contain any scientific references. Moreover, if scientific references are present, half of them are evaluated as unimportant or background information by the inventor. Overall, these observations provide evidence that scientific references in patent documents signal relatedness with the implied inventions without necessarily implying a direct, inspirational, knowledge flow between both activity realms.     

Factors affecting the diffusion of patented military technology in the field of weapons and ammunition

In this paper, we carry out an empirical analysis to address some questions concerning the flow of knowledge stemming from military patented technologies. Patented military technology consists of a set of inventions which nature, uses or/and applications have defensive or offensive purposes. In this paper, we focus on the field of weapons and ammunition. Our objective is to identify, why the knowledge embedded in a military technology diffuses into other patented technologies. The methodology relies on a patent citations analysis and involves the specification of several multilevel logit models to identify the individual and country characteristics that determine the citation of military patents in subsequent patents. The data contain 1,756 citations to 582 patents of military origin with a simultaneous Europe–US protection and registered by companies/institutions from 1998 to 2003. The results reveal that military knowledge diffuses more intensively across civil patents, when the original military patent includes diverse technologies (civil and military) and is progressively less specific in terms of weapons and ammunition. Military patents filed by British, French, US, Japanese and German companies are, in this order, more likely to have a larger number of citations in subsequent civil patents. The ownership of the original military patent is not a determining factor for explaining the diffusion into civil patents, but it does influence the diffusion across mixed and military technologies. Finally, the technological capacity of the citing company also affects the type and intensity of the diffusion of the military knowledge.     

Deciphering innovation: An exploration of USPTO patents granted to Iranian inventors

Since nearly a decade ago, Iranian policy circles have declared innovation and development of science-based industries as a priority area. This paper utilizes the emerging Iranian patent stock in the USPTO to ascertain progress on this front. Results indicate that there are policy traces in the emerging patent portfolio as proxied by sponsorship statements in 28% of all patents. However, there is little evidence of technological specialization. Breaking down the portfolio into foreign-assigned, Iranian-assigned, unassigned and Iranian-sponsored patents, indicates that foreign-assigned, followed by Iranian-assigned patents are of higher quality and potential value. Nearly half of the patents are unassigned and 40% are assigned to foreign entities. Lack of ownership assignment can be a hurdle to effective exploitation, defense and maintenance of patents. The analysis is concluded by relevant policy lessons.     

Concordance and complementarity in IP instruments

ABSTRACT

This work investigates the relationship between proxies of innovation activities, such as patents and trademarks, and firm performance in terms of revenues, growth, and profitability. By resorting to the virtual universe of Italian manufacturing and service firms, this work provides a rather complete picture of the Intellectual Property (IP) strategies pursued by Italian firms, in terms of patents and trademarks, and studies whether the two instruments for protecting IP exhibit complementarity or substitutability. In addition, and to our knowledge novel, we propose a measure of concordance (or proximity) between the patents and trademarks owned by the same firm and we then investigate whether such concordance exerts any effect on performance. The results suggest that while patents and trademarks independently exert a relevant impact on firm performance, there is no convincing evidence in favour of a complementary role of IP.     

Issued US patents,patent-related global academic and media publications,and the US market indices are inter-correlated,with varying growth patterns

The increase in patents is a main driving force for discussions of international competitiveness, knowledge spillovers, patent office efficiencies, and others. However, to the author’s knowledge, it is interesting that no work has investigated the impact of the growth in the number of patents on patent-related scholarly (peer-reviewed) and media (e.g., press release) literatures, or evidence of inter-relatedness among these three literatures with those of the US market indices (viz., Dow, S&P500, NASDAQ). Here, I report that the growth in the number of US issued patents, the patent-related media and peer-reviewed publications, and these indices are statistically correlated, but with drastically different growth rates. This general result affords data supporting a hypothesis that publicly traded companies, as drivers of innovation, are priming a new research area within the scholarly communities and simultaneously affecting market value through, what-may-be-called, “patent journalism.”     

Organization and Management of Deep knowledge Resources for Product Innovation

Product innovation,for a truly strong solution,needs deep knowledge.Based on this point,the authors draw a conclusion that patents are the main resource of deep technique knowledge.There are five levels of newly organized patents.The main results of the studies on patents are various tech-nique effects.The database of effects is organized and managed according to the form of function-effect structure.     

基于文化知识解构与重构的传统手工技艺文化产品设计研究

目的 传统手工技艺面临着环境丢失、生态迷失和传承缺失的问题,振兴传统工艺是我国文化传承发展工程和非遗保护中的重要任务之一。从设计学的角度探讨现代设计与手工艺之间的传承与创新,为传统手工技艺的保护与发展提供新的思路和策略。方法 基于传统手工技艺的文化产品设计,在厘清传统设计策略的基础上,以产品的文化意象为切入点,对传统手工技艺进行器、术、道三个层次的分析,从文化知识的解构和重构角度开展传统手工技艺的文化产品设计路径研究。结论 提出了传统手工技艺文化产品设计可视化流程模型,探讨了传统手工技艺文化中的显性知识和隐性知识的文化知识转移路径。     

Identifying dynamic knowledge flow patterns of business method patents with a hidden Markov model

As an alternative to the conventional R&D innovation, business models are becoming an important locus of lucrative innovation. Due to the rise of the internet economy, business model innovation today often involves technological innovation, and this can be evidenced by business method (BM) patents. Of several mechanisms that stimulate business model innovation, the role of BM patents is probably most noteworthy. To understand how BM patents play their roles in business model innovation, we need to observe the long-term knowledge flow process. Therefore, we aim to identify dynamic patterns of knowledge flows driven by BM patents using a hidden Markov model (HMM) and patent citation data as an input. An HMM is a popular statistical tool for modelling a wide range of time series data. Since it does not have any general theoretical limit in regard to statistical pattern classification, an HMM is capable of characterizing various temporal patterns. A case study is conducted with the BM patents in 16 USPTO subclasses related to secure transactions. After patterns of the individual subclasses are generated, they are grouped into four major patterns through clustering analysis and their characteristics are closely examined. Our analysis reveals that the BM patents for secure transaction in general play increasingly important roles in advancement of business models, facilitating the transfer of knowledge, and thus can provide valuable insights in formulating more effective strategies or policies for business model innovation.     

Exploring knowledge diffusion among nations: a study of core technologies in fuel cells

Technological trajectory is a representation of the development of technology. Based on the analysis of the trajectories of prominent technologies, we can explore the phenomena of technology evolution and knowledge diffusion. In this study, we focus on explaining knowledge diffusion in the core technology used in fuel cells, i.e. the development of 5-layer membrane electrode assembly (MEA) technologies. Through an investigation of path analysis, this study explores how the knowledge of this technology has evolved and diffused across different locations. The empirical analysis also explains how certain technological knowledge plays a critical role in main path. In this study, patent data of 5-layer MEA technologies for fuel cells is collected from the US Patent Office, for a total of 1,356 patents, followed by constructing a patent citation network based on citation relationships, recognising prominent patents with many citations through path analysis. Using the local main path analysis and global key-route method, we identify three stages of technological development, including an improvement of the proton exchange membrane (PEM) and catalyst synthesis. Additionally, we use regression analysis to demonstrate that patents with specific characteristics play a vital role in the process of knowledge diffusion. Patents from Japan and South Korea are relatively more important than patents from other countries. The brokerage characteristics of a patent (e.g., coordinating domestically or liaising among three or more countries) also facilitate the diffusion of technological knowledge. However, the importance of these brokerages changes when we look at inventing time. Furthermore, the technological diversification of a patent exerted no substantial influence on its network position.     

Exploring the quality of environmental technology in Europe: evidence from patent citations

In this paper we carry out an empirical analysis to address some questions concerning the production and quality of technology in environmental sectors. The methodology involves patents as a measure of the generation of new knowledge, and patent citations as a proxy for the quality of a technological invention. The sample contains more than 12,000 environmental European patents from firms and government institutions from 1998 to 2004. From our econometric analysis, we found that environmental patents applied by individual inventors present on average less quality that those applied by institutional inventors. The size of family patent is relevant to explain forward patent citation. Furthermore, patents coming from abroad (out of Europe), in particular with US and Japan priority, are more cited on average than local patents (with European priority). Lastly, the specialization in environmental fields of a patent plays a negative role in determining the frequency of forward citation.     

Science-Technology Linkages in an Emerging Research Platform: The Case of Combinatorial Chemistry and Biology

This article focuses on issues concerning science and technology relationships posed by the emergence of a new drug discovery method, namely, combinatorial chemistry and biology. We assess the scientific content of combinatorial chemistry and biology using citations in patents to scientific journals and compare this research platform with biotechnology. We also identify the institutional affiliation of all the authors of the cited papers, which leads us to an analysis of knowledge spillovers between the main participants in the research network. Finally, we examine the relevance of localisation in the process of knowledge exchange with regard to EU countries and the US. The result of the analysis provides evidence to support the view that the inventive capacity of a country is dependent upon the basic research which is carried out, especially in universities and public research centres located in the inventor's country.     

Ontology-based neural network for patent knowledge management in design collaboration

In order to stimulate innovation during the collaborative process of new product and production development, especially to avoid duplicating existing techniques or infringing upon others’ patents and intellectual property rights, the collaborative team of research and development, and patent engineers must accurately identify relevant patent knowledge in a timely manner. This research develops a novel knowledge management approach using ontology-based artificial neural network (ANN) algorithm to automatically classify and search knowledge documents stored in huge online patent corpuses. This research focuses on developing a smart and semantic oriented classification and search from the sources of the most critical and well-structured knowledge publications, i.e. patents, to gain valuable and practical references for the collaborative networks of technology-centric product and production development teams. The research uses the domain ontology schema created using Protégé and derives the semantic concept probabilities of key phrases that frequently occur in domain relevant patent documents. Then, by combining the term frequencies and the concept probabilities of key phrases as the ANN inputs, the method shows significant improvement in classification accuracy. In addition, this research provides an advanced semantic-oriented search algorithm to accurately identify related patent documents in the patent knowledge base. The case demonstration analyses 343 chemical mechanical polishing and 150 radio-frequency identification patents sample sets to verify and measure the performance of the proposed approach. The results are compared with the previous automatic classification methods demonstrating much improved outcomes.     

Visualization of patents and papers in terahertz technology: a comparative study

Terahertz technology is one of the most promising research areas in the 21st century. In this work, we intend to compare the research status quo on terahertz technology between 1990 and 2010 using knowledge domain visualization techniques. Our data consists of 633 patents retrieved from Aureka management platform and 10,344 journal articles indexed in the ISI web of knowledge. Our analysis is a combination of two information visualization tools for analysis, Aureka and CiteSpace. Aureka is allowed for the analysis of patents filed/granted each year, priority country, inventors, assignees, citation counting, and cluster analysis, while networks of co-authors, countries, institutions, document co-citation networks and document co-citation clusters, are performed by CiteSpace. This research provides a comprehensive domain visualization map of innovation and knowledge in the area of terahertz technology. Our result shows that Aureka and CiteSpace are two promising visualization approaches to analyze patents and papers in any given field.     

Triadic citations,country biases and patent value: the case of pharmaceuticals

Triadic patents minimise home bias effects in studies that focus on patent counts as a measure of innovative activity. Yet, biases in qualitative patent indicators have been largely neglected. This article advocates that forward patent citations, and triadic citations in particular, can illuminate further on home bias, self citations, and the speed of knowledge flows for drug patents published by the USPTO for the period 1980–2008. The evidence shows that triadic citations help to minimize the home bias in citations as well as to make patent quality more transparent. Also, it indicates that self citations and the age distribution of citations are important factors to consider when explaining cross-country differences in pharmaceutical citations.