Applying an anchor based patent mapping approach: Basic conception and the case of carbon fiber reinforcements

Patent mapping is an important method for analyzing technological patterns both for scientific research and strategic tasks in companies. In this paper we focus on a specific type of technological pattern, namely the analysis of patents' positions in relation to predefined positions of application fields. For this purpose we use an anchoring approach. We apply semantic patent measurement and discuss RadViz as a powerful method to visualize the measurement's results and to provide insightful motion patterns for monitoring technology change. Moreover, we present an algorithm to define so called anchor points as high dimensional reference points by using textual elements of patents. By the example of carbon fiber reinforcements we demonstrate the usefulness of our approach. Thus, our approach enables academics to analyze important types of technological patterns like convergence or divergence by means of a new instrument and gives practitioners like the R&D management of companies the opportunity to build a reliable strategic business decision support.     

Using patent analysis to explore corporate growth

This study applies patent analysis to discuss the influences of the three aspects of patent trait—a firm’s revealed technology advantage in its most important technological field (RTA_MIT), relative patent position in its most important technological field (RPP_MIT), and patent share in its most important technological field (PS_MIT)—upon corporate growth and discusses the moderation effect of relative growth rate of its most important technological field (RGR_MIT) in the American pharmaceutical industry. The results demonstrate that the three relationships between corporate growth and the three aspects of patent trait are positive, and verify that RGR_MIT moderates the three relationships. This study suggests that pharmaceutical companies should enhance their R&D capabilities, the degree of leading position, and concentration of R&D investment in their most important technological fields to increase their growth. Finally, this study classifies the pharmaceutical companies into four types, and provides some suggestions to them.     

基于熵权-TOPSIS模型的包装上市企业技术创新能力综合评价

以我国包装上市企业为研究样本,构建包含技术创新投入、技术创新产出、技术创新环境支撑能力3个层次的评价指标体系,采用聚类分析将企业分为技术创新能力较强、一般和较弱3类,运用熵权-TOPSIS和障碍度模型对包装上市企业的技术创新能力进行综合评价。研究结果表明,我国包装上市企业技术创新能力整体较弱,技术创新产出方面对其影响最大,主要障碍因素集中于专利申请数、专利质量等,体现为科技成果转化能力弱。最后分别从合理利用创新投入资源、完善创新人才建设制度、加强科技创新转化能力和提高创新环境支撑能力等方面,提出提高我国包装上市企业技术创新能力的对策。     

A structured approach to explore technological competencies through R&D portfolio of photovoltaic companies by patent statistics

When the technological development of an enterprise is path dependent, core technological competencies will develop. In addition, core technological competencies promote technological development. Consequently, enterprises should always examine the advantages of their core technological competencies. Under dynamic competition, enterprises should monitor their own performance as well as their competitors at all times and consequently adjust their technological strategies. This study used two patent indices, Patent Share and Revealed Technological Advantage, to measure the internal core technological competencies of manufacturers. It also integrated four other indices namely: (1) Technology Attractiveness (Relative Growth Rate), (2) growth potential of technologies (Relative Development of Technology Growth Rate), (3) Relative Patent Position, and (4) Revealed Patent Advantages. These were used to analyze the external strengths and weaknesses of the research and development (R&D) portfolios of companies. These two analytical methods can effectively identify the internal core technological competencies and the external advantages of R&D portfolios of leading companies in the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry. This study also discussed the relationship between R&D portfolios and core technological competencies of leading solar photovoltaic companies and compared those with two core technological competencies with those that have a single core technological competence. The study results show that the R&D portfolios of companies engaged in a single, specific technology field have advantages. This study helps improve the quality of technological planning and decision-making of manufacturers, proposes a method of using core technological competencies to analyze the advantages of R&D portfolios, and helps solar PV manufacturers monitor their own core technological competencies as well as their competitors and partner companies.     

专利地图与TRIZ融合技术创新指标体系构建及影响因素分析

梳理专利地图与TRIZ融合技术创新的流程,构建其影响因素指标体系。应用粗糙集理论识别专利地图与TRIZ融合技术创新的关键影响因素,并进行实证研究。研究结果表明,粗糙集方法在定量分析处理模糊和不确定性知识方面具有优越性;且在运用专利地图与TRIZ融合技术创新方法进行技术创新时,专利数据源准确性、完整性,专利分析结果有效性和技术创新经济效益是影响企业技术创新的关键因素,研究结果符合企业技术创新实际情况。     

Analysis of developing a specific technological field using the theme code of Japanese patent information

The paper was to establish an easy and effective method to investigate and develop a specific technological field from Japanese patent information. The walking technique of the biped humanoid robot was used as an example to study the relative research capabilities and patent citation conditions for patent owners and patent map by the searching method of the theme code for FI (File Index) and F-term classification system of the Japanese Patent Office (JPO). A formulated technical matrix of patent map was established to indicate that the ZMP (Zero Moment Point) control means was the main technology to achieve stabilized walking control of the humanoid biped robot. This method can aid to establish a specific technological matrix from the specific selected term codes (single viewpoint or multiple viewpoints) of the F-term list in the theme code of the JPO system through Boolean logical operations. The resulting particular technical fields were developed to improve the technological capability or seek the merging technology opportunities.     

Identifying technological competition trends for R&D planning using dynamic patent maps: SAO-based content analysis

Patent maps showing competition trends in technological development can provide valuable input for decision support on research and development (R&D) strategies. By introducing semantic patent analysis with advantages in representing technological objectives and structures, this paper constructs dynamic patent maps to show technological competition trends and describes the strategic functions of the dynamic maps. The proposed maps are based on subject-action-object (SAO) structures that are syntactically ordered sentences extracted using the natural language processing of the patent text; the structures of a patent encode the key findings of the invention and expertise of its inventors. Therefore, this paper introduces a method of constructing dynamic patent maps using SAO-based content analysis of patents and presents several types of dynamic patent maps by combining patent bibliographic information and patent mapping and clustering techniques. Building on the maps, this paper provides further analyses to identify technological areas in which patents have not been granted (“patent vacuums”), areas in which many patents have actively appeared (“technological hot spots”), R&D overlap of technological competitors, and characteristics of patent clusters. The proposed analyses of dynamic patent maps are illustrated using patents related to the synthesis of carbon nanotubes. We expect that the proposed method will aid experts in understanding technological competition trends in the process of formulating R&D strategies.     

Technological catch-up in the biopharmaceutical sector: Evidence from Iran

This paper addresses the market and technological capabilities required for technological catch-up in the biopharmaceutical sector using a multi-case study method. The paper reveals that the firms that are catching up in biopharmaceuticals first developed their production capabilities (including API production, formulation and obtaining health approvals), then entered the process innovation. Iranian companies have locally re-produced existing products in the market in exact accordance with global standards, and then entered into the introduction of new strains by intensifying their R&D efforts. The paper observes that the existence of strong R&D efforts from the early stages is a prerequisite for technological growth. It also argues that assimilated migratory knowledge can not only complement indigenous efforts, but also stimulate further technological capability-building efforts by local firms. The paper shows that technological development in the Iranian biopharmaceutical industry was firstly geared towards the home market, which we refer to as the ‘test-bed’, before entering into international markets. A key strategic point here is that, despite the maximum use of domestic market capacity, our study considers it necessary to try to enter international markets. Therefore, presence in these markets and the development of capabilities in the biopharmaceutical industry are two blades of a pair of scissors.     

Identifying rapidly evolving technological trends for R&;D planning using SAO-based semantic patent networks

Patents constitute an up-to-date source of competitive intelligence in technological development; thus, patent analysis has been a vital tool for identifying technological trends. Patent citation analysis is easy to use, but fundamentally has two main limitations: (1) new patents tend to be less cited than old ones and may miss citations to contemporary patents; (2) citation-based analysis cannot be used for patents in databases which do not require citations. Naturally, citation-based analysis tends to underestimate the importance of new patents and may not work in rapidly-evolving industries in which technology life-cycles are shortening and new inventions are increasingly patented world-wide. As a remedy, this paper proposes a patent network based on semantic patent analysis using subject-action-object (SAO) structures. SAO structures represent the explicit relationships among components used in a patent, and are considered to represent key concepts of the patent or the expertise of the inventor. Based on the internal similarities between patents, the patent network provides the up-to-date status of a given technology. Furthermore, this paper suggests new indices to identify the technological importance of patents, the characteristics of patent clusters, and the technological capabilities of competitors. The proposed method is illustrated using patents related to synthesis of carbon nanotubes. We expect that the proposed procedure and analysis will be incorporated into technology planning processes to assist experts such as researchers and R&D policy makers in rapidly-evolving industries.     

Science and technology in the region: The output of regional science and technology, its strengths and its leading institutions

Summary We operationalize scientific output in a region by means of the number of articles (as in the SciSearch database) per year and technology output by means of the number of patent applications (as in the database of the European Patent Office) per priority year. All informetric analyses were done using the DIALOG online-system. The main research questions are the following: Which scientific and technological fields or topics are most influent within a region and which institutions or companies are mainly publishing articles or holding patents? Do the distributions of regional science and technology fields and of publishing institutions follow the well-known informetric function? Are there - as it is expected - only few fields and few institutions which dominate the region? Is there a connection between the economic power of a region and the regional publication and patent output? Examples studied in detail are seven German regions: Aachen, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Köln (Cologne), Leipzig - Halle - Dessau, München (Munich), and Stuttgart. Three different indicators were used, science and technology attraction of a region (number of scientific articles and patents), science and technology intensity (articles and patents per 1,000 inhabitants), and science and technology density (articles and patents per 1 billion EURO gross value added). Top region concerning both attraction and intensity is Munich, concerning density it is Aachen.     

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.     

Analyzing technology impact networks for R&D planning using patents: combined application of network approaches

Recently, national governments have tried to improve technology ecology, by formulating research and development (R&D) policies and investing in R&D programs. For strategically designed national R&D plans, analytic approaches that identify and assess the impact of each technology from short-term and long-term perspectives are necessary. Further, in methodological perspective, the approaches should be able to synthetically consider the most recent technological information, the direct and hidden impacts among technologies, and the relative impacts of the focal technology in globally-linked technological relationship from the overall perspective. However, most previous studies based patent citation networks are insufficient for these requirements. As a remedy, we present a combined approach for constructing a technology impact network and identifying the impact and intermediating capability of technology areas from the perspective of a national technology system. To construct and analyze the technology impact network, our method integrates three network techniques: patent co-classification (PCA), decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL), and social network analysis (SNA). The advantages of the proposed method are threefold. First, it identifies the directed technological knowledge flows from the most recent patents, by employing PCA. Second, the proposed network contains both the direct and indirect impacts among different technology areas, by applying the DEMATEL method. Third, using SNA, the method can analyze the characteristics of the technologies in terms of the comprehensive impacts and the potential brokerage capabilities. The method is illustrated using all of the recent Korean patents (58,279) in the United States patent database from 2008 to 2012. We expect that our method can be used to provide input to decision makers for effective R&D planning.     

Technology opportunity identification customized to the technological capability of SMEs through two-stage patent analysis

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have difficulties identifying appropriate technology opportunities under severe capability and resource constraints. To tackle this issue, we suggest a method for identifying technology opportunities that is customized to the existing technologies and technological capabilities of SMEs through two-stage patent analysis. An expert-based technological attribute–application table makes it possible to identify basic opportunities by multiple keyword matching. Also, non-traditional opportunities can be explored and identified by an iterative action–object analysis of patents. This two-stage patent analysis approach provides managers with a way of identifying specific technology opportunities in which their existing technologies can be utilized to the maximum extent, therefore helping them to develop technology strategies.     

Offshore versus domestic: Can EM MNCs reach higher R&D quality abroad?

In the current discourse about the technological development of emerging market multinational companies (EM MNCs), the internationalization of research and development (R&D) activities is increasingly discussed as a strategy for catching-up to established MNCs. EM MNCs attempt to use international R&D to tap into technologically superior resources abroad which are not available to them in their home market. This study compares the performance of domestic and offshore R&D activities to look into EM MNCs’ ability to conduct high-quality R&D abroad. We use the Chinese telecommunication equipment manufacturer Huawei as a best practice case study. To map their worldwide patent quality pattern, we propose a multiple-patent-office-approach to ensure a balanced view on their activities with data from SIPO, USPTO and EPO. We also employ three different measures to capture different dimensions of patent quality. The results of the empirical model support the assumption of higher quality for patents with knowledge from advanced offshore locations.     

The nonlinear nature of the relationships between the patent traits and corporate performance

This study utilizes neural network to explore the nonlinear relationships between corporate performance and the patent traits measured from Herfindahl-Hirschman Index of patents (HHI of patents), patent citations, and relative patent position in the most important technological field (RPP_MIT) in the US pharmaceutical industry. The results show that HHI of patents and RPP_MIT have nonlinearly and monotonically positive influences upon corporate performance, while the influence of patent citations is nonlinearly U-shaped. Therefore, pharmaceutical companies should raise the degrees of the leading position in their most important technological fields and the centralization of their technological capabilities to enhance corporate performance.     

Scientific capabilities and technological performance of national innovation systems: An exploration of emerging industrial relevant research domains

Today's theories and models on innovation stress the importance of scientific capabilities and science-technology proximity, especially in new emerging fields of economic activity. Inthis contribution we examine the relationship between national scientific capabilities, the science intensity of technology and technological performance within six emergent industrial fields. Our findings reveal that national technological performance is positively associated with scientific capabilities. Countries performing better on a technological level are characterized both by larger numbers of publications and by numbers of involved institutions that exceed average expected values. The latter observation holds for both companies and knowledge generating institutes actively involved in scientific activities. As such, our findings seem to suggest beneficial effects of scientific capabilities shouldered by a multitude of organizations. In addition, higher numbers of patent activity coincide with higher levels of science intensity pointing out the relevance of science 'proximity' when developing technology in newer, emerging fields. Limitations and directions for further research are discussed.     

Analyzing the nonlinear effects of firm size,profitability, and employee productivity on patent citations of the US pharmaceutical companies by using artificial neural network

This study utilizes neural network to explore the nonlinear relationships between corporate performance and the patent traits measured from Herfindahl-Hirschman Index of patents (HHI of patents), patent citations, and relative patent position in the most important technological field (RPP_MIT) in the US pharmaceutical industry. The results show that HHI of patents and RPP_MIT have nonlinearly and monotonically positive influences upon corporate performance, while the influence of patent citations is nonlinearly U-shaped. Therefore, pharmaceutical companies should raise the degrees of the leading position in their most important technological fields and the centralization of their technological capabilities to enhance corporate performance.     

A Systemic Approach to Exploring an Essential Patent Linking Standard and Patent Maps: Application of Generative Topographic Mapping (GTM)

Abstract:

As the intense competition for the international standardization of technology has increased, many companies are concentrating their capabilities on securing essential patents that claim one or more inventions required to practice a given industry standard; however, despite the importance of developing essential patents, the approaches to exploring promising essential patent: have some limitations in terms of methodology and data. As a remedy, this article proposes a method that derives an essential patent through Generative Topographic Mapping (GTM)-based standard and patent maps. The suggested approach involves a systematic process that identifies vacuums on a standard map in a specific technology field and enables analysts to find candidate for promising essential patents instead of relying on the experts. By applying the proposed methodology, this research discovered the vacuums in an industrial standard document about fuel cell technology as well as the candidates of essential patents in this technology field.     

Network structure of innovation: can brokerage or closure predict patent quality?

Patents are important intellectual assets for companies to defend or to claim their technological rights. To control R&D cost, companies should carefully examine their patents by patent quality. Approaches to evaluating patent quality are mostly a posteriori uses of factual information of patent quality. This paper examined whether patent quality can be predicted a priori, i.e., during the early years after a patent is granted, by analyzing information embedded in a network of patent citations. Social network analysis was applied to analyze two network positions occupied by a patent, brokerage and closure to determine whether either position is a good predictor of patent quality. Patent renewal decisions and forward citations were adopted as surrogates of patent quality. The analytical results showed that forward citations can be positively predicted by the brokerage position and negatively predicted by the closure position in the early and mature stages. Renewal decisions can be negatively predicted by the brokerage position in the early stage, and the closure position influences the renewal decision in a different way in the early and mature stages. These analytical results imply that a company should focus on developing patents that bridge different technologies as its technological developments reach maturity.     

Strategic Thrust of Manufacturing Automation Decisions: A Conceptual Framework

American manufacturing firms increasingly consider automation as the means to increase productivity and improve their competitiveness. However, decisions to automate do not always produce the expected results and lead to further frustration. The so called “islands of automation” are often blamed for such failures and other technological alternatives such as computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) are adopted on a piece-meal fashion. This paper examines the adoption of new technology in general, and die decision to automate in particular, from a strategic perspective. In order to deal with the underlying complexities of automation, a conceptual framework is developed that can guide decision makers through a step-by-step process. Within an experimental analysis context, a decision support system is built that uses the “Expert Choice” cell to test the effectiveness of the introduced framework. The results indicate that the study's method can greatly enhance the decision making capabilities of firms contemplating automation