Category Archives: Patents

Business intelligence through patent filings: An analysis of IP management strategies of ICT companies (full-text)

CTI, Patents, Research Examples, Strategic planning, Tech mining

Business intelligence enables enterprises to make effective and good quality business decisions. In the knowledge economy, patents are seen as strategic assets for companies as they provide a competitive advantage and at the same time ensure the freedom to operate and form the basis for new alliances. Publication or disclosure of intellectual property (IP) strategy based on patent filings is rarely available in the public domain. Because of this, the only way to understand IP strategy is to look at patent filings, analyze them and, based on the trends, deduce strategy. This paper tries to uncover IP strategies of five US and Indian IT companies by analyzing their patent filings. Gathering business intelligence via means of patent analytics can be used to understand the strategies used by companies in advocating their patent portfolio and aligning their business needs with patenting activities. This study reveals that the Indian companies are far behind in protecting their IPs, although they are now on course correction and have started aggressively protecting their inventions. It is also observed that the rival companies in the study are not directly competing with each other in the same technological domain. Different patent filing strategies are used by firms to gain a competitive advantage. Companies make use of disclosure as strategy or try to cover many aspects of a technology in a single patent, thereby signaling their dominance in a technological area and at the same time as they add information.

https://ojs.hh.se/index.php/JISIB/article/view/322/pdf

Author(s): Shabib-Ahmed Shaikh, Tarun Kumar Singhal
Organization(s): Symbiosis International University (SIU), Symbiosis Centre for Management Studies
Source: Journal of Intelligence Studies in Business
Year: 2018

Analysis of an investment by a seed capital fund using a patento-scientometric approach: the case of probiotics technology for veterinary use

Data Type, Patents, Research Examples, Research profiling, Research Type, S&T lit, ST&I policy

This article examines the potential use of scientometric and patentometric indicators as a way to instrumentalise the process of selecting projects by seed capital funds. Academic interest in high-tech companies is growing due to their ability to contribute to economic and social development. Nevertheless, the literature and documented practice reveal a certain difficulty to evaluate non-financial criteria associated with technologies by venture capital funds. We selected the case of a company that received an investment from Brazil’s largest seed capital fund to analyse the contribution of these indicators to understand the potential of the firm’s technology. We conclude that use of scientometric and patentometric can improve the process of evaluation of the following criteria: technology; market; divestment; and team.

https://doi.org/10.1504/IJBBM.2018.092749

Author(s): Gustavo Da Silva Motta, Maxwel De Azevedo-Ferreira, Rogério Hermida Quintella
Organization(s): Universidade Federal Fluminense, Universidade Federal da Bahia
Source: International Journal of Bibliometrics in Business and Management
Year: 2018

How R&D partner diversity influences innovation performance: an empirical study in the nano-biopharmaceutical field

Patents, Research Examples

R&D partner diversity is generally acknowledged to help organizations to improve innovation performance. This study investigates the influence mechanism in depth by introducing technological diversification as mediator and the structural holes of new knowledge elements from R&D partners and the degree centrality of the focal organization’s knowledge elements as two moderators. The empirical analysis is based on patent data in the emerging nano-biopharmaceutical field and includes 554 innovative organizations. Results show that partners’ organizational diversity and geographical diversity have positive effects on focal organizations’ innovation performance through improving technological diversification. The structural holes of new knowledge elements from R&D partners and the degree centrality of the focal organization’s knowledge elements moderate the process in the way that when they are at high levels, the indirect positive effects of partner diversity on innovation performance through technological diversification are strengthened.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2831-6

Author(s): Guiyang Zhang, Chaoying Tang
Organization(s): Chinese Academy of Sciences
Source: Scientometrics
Year: 2018

Autonomous systems: A bibliometric and patent analysis (full-text)

Data Type, Patents, Research Examples, Research profiling, Research Type, S&T lit

This report examines Germany’s research and patent position in four autonomous systems: smart homes, smart factories, autonomous vehicles (non-hostile environments), and autonomous vehicles in hostile environments. Bibliometric analysis of scholarly papers indexed in the Web of Science and patent analysis of documents in Patstat and Derwent Innovation Index (representing patents from more than 40 patent authorities worldwide) are conducted for all records published in the 2002 to 2017 (May) time
period. Results suggest that Germany has great strengths in autonomous systems, particularly in the smart factory and autonomous vehicles domains. German research publications are particularly strong in hard technological areas such as representation, localization, computer vision, and sensor vision. The diversity of research organizations and patenting sectors is another strength of Germany’s. German patents also
benefit from being more science-based and international than those from other comparator nations. On the other hand, Germany has less research publication and patent output in the smart home and autonomous vehicles in hostile environment system domains. Germany is less likely to show strength in data analytic and machine learning areas.

For full-text see  https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/175556    

Author(s): Jan Youtie, Alan Porter, Philip Shapira, Seokkyun Woo, Yayun Huang
Organization(s): Georgia Institute of Technology
Source: Studien zum deutschen Innovationssystem
Year: 2017

Gender distinctions in patenting: Does nanotechnology make a difference?

Data Type, Patents, Research Examples

Analyzing the domestic patent records filed with the United State Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in the 16-year time period from 1990 to 2005, this study benchmarks the collaboration patterns and gender-specific performance in patenting nanotechnology, a newly emerging field, with those in the general area across all technological fields (thereafter the overall tech area, a proxy of traditional technological fields). Going beyond what has been discovered in a previous study that women’s involvement in patenting is lower than their male peers in nanotechnology, the empirical evidence reported here suggests that the gap to women’s disadvantage was smaller in nanotechnology than in the overall tech area in the studied period. The major finding of this study is that, while more than 90% of patents across fields were from industry where patenting is least likely to be collaborative, nano-patents have more diverse origins (79% from industry and 21 from universities, government, public institutions, and cross-sectoral collaboration) and are more likely to be collaborative outcomes (including those from industry). The profile of nanotechnology patents in terms of workforce sectors has the implication that nanotechnology presents an environment where women are more able to catch collaborative opportunities and engage in patenting. Implications for future research are discussed correspondingly.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-017-2607-4

Author(s): Yu Meng
Organization: Xiamen University
Source: Scientometrics
Year: 2018

A landscape of bioinformatics patents – Garnering of IPR in the field of bioinformatics

Data Type, Patents, Research Examples, Research profiling

In the current information technology era, Bioinformatics is growing rapidly due to availability of vast database systems and the ever increasing amount of biological data. It is a flexible and creative means of storing, managing, and querying of complex biological datasets. With these rapid advancements in today’s technology-driven age, it is also imperative that protection in the form of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) is sought for such research and development activity. In addition, there is a need to formulate an aggressive strategy to protect one’s IP. In fact, various companies’, universities’, institutions’ and researchers’ are into the process to protect their core invention. This landscape will give an outline of the latest technological growth, geographical distribution, and top competitors playing an important role in this field.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0172219016300746

Author(s): Neha Mago, Nishad Deshpande, Rajkumar R.Hirwani
Organization(s): CSIR-Unit for Research and Development of Information Products (CSIR-URDIP)
Source: World Patent Information
Year: 2017

Assessing technological developments in amorphous/glassy metallic alloys using patent indicators

Patents, Research Examples, Research profiling, Strategic planning

Alloys with an amorphous structure represent a class of advanced metallic materials which have great potential for industrial applications and technological innovations as a consequence of their interesting chemical, mechanical and magnetic properties. Considerable effort has been devoted to investigating scientific issues concerning these alloys, but less attention has been paid to assessing the impact of this accumulated knowledge regarding the development of new materials, products and processes. In this study, we evaluated the technological developments in metallic glass using patent indicators. Patent documents are a valuable source of information as they reflect R&D activities and market issues. Data and text mining processing were carried out in order to extract useful indicators from bibliographic records of patent documents indexed in the worldwide Derwent Innovations Index database. The results evaluated the technological advances and showed the life-cycle stage of developments and the interests of companies, research institutions and countries. This study mapped the main alloys and manufacturing processes that have been patented. Amorphous metallic alloys have become ever increasingly important for technological developments regarding metallic alloys in general, and the indicators developed in this study can be used as a source to support decision making in funding new projects and in R&D management.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925838817316973

Author(s): Douglas H. Milanez, Leandro I.L. Faria, Daniel R. Leiva, Claudio S. Kiminami, Walter J. Botta
Organization(s): Federal University of São Carlos
Source: Journal of Alloys and Compounds
Year: 2017

A hybrid similarity measure method for patent portfolio analysis

Data Type, Patents, Research Examples, ST&I indicators

Similarity measures are fundamental tools for identifying relationships within or across patent portfolios. Many bibliometric indicators are used to determine similarity measures; for example, bibliographic coupling, citation and co-citation, and co-word distribution. This paper aims to construct a hybrid similarity measure method based on multiple indicators to analyze patent portfolios. Two models are proposed: categorical similarity and semantic similarity. The categorical similarity model emphasizes international patent classifications (IPCs), while the semantic similarity model emphasizes textual elements. We introduce fuzzy set routines to translate the rough technical (sub-) categories of IPCs into defined numeric values, and we calculate the categorical similarities between patent portfolios using membership grade vectors. In parallel, we identify and highlight core terms in a 3-level tree structure and compute the semantic similarities by comparing the tree-based structures. A weighting model is designed to consider: 1) the bias that exists between the categorical and semantic similarities, and 2) the weighting or integrating strategy for a hybrid method. A case study to measure the technological similarities between selected firms in China’s medical device industry is used to demonstrate the reliability our method, and the results indicate the practical meaning of our method in a broad range of informetric applications.

Highlights

  • An application that introduces fuzzy sets to transform IPCs to numeric values.
  • A 3-level tree structure that arranges terms hierarchically for similarity measure.
  • A study that applies similarity measure for technology mergers and acquisitions.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157715302169

Author(s): Yi Zhang, Lining Shang, Lu Huang, Alan L. Porter, Guangquan Zhang, Jie Lu, Donghua Zhu
Organization(s): University of Technology Sydney, Beijing Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology
Source: Journal of Informetrics
Year: 2016

Patent information retrieval: approaching a method and analysing nanotechnology patent collaborations

Data Type, Patents, Research Examples, Research Type, ST&I indicators

Many challenges still remain in the processing of explicit technological knowledge documents such as patents. Given the limitations and drawbacks of the existing approaches, this research sets out to develop an improved method for searching patent databases and extracting patent information to increase the efficiency and reliability of nanotechnology patent information retrieval process and to empirically analyse patent collaboration. A tech-mining method was applied and the subsequent analysis was performed using Thomson data analyser software. The findings show that nations such as Korea and Japan are highly collaborative in sharing technological knowledge across academic and corporate organisations within their national boundaries, and China presents, in some cases, a great illustration of effective patent collaboration and co-inventorship. This study also analyses key patent strengths by country, organisation and technology.

OPEN ACCESS article. For Full-text, go to https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-017-2325-y

Author(s): Sercan Ozcan, Nazrul Islam
Organization(s): University of Portsmouth, University of Exeter
Source: Scientometrics
Year: 2017

International Collaboration Patterns and Effecting Factors of Emerging Technologies

Data Type, Future-oriented technology analysis, Patents, Research Examples, Research Type

With the globalization of the world economy, international innovation collaboration has taken place all over the world. This study selects three emerging technologies (3D printing, big data and carbon nanotubes and graphene technology) among 20 countries as the research objects, using three patent-based indicators and network relationship analysis to reflect international collaboration patterns. Then we integrate empirical analyses to show effecting factors of international collaboration degrees by using panel data. The results indicate that while 3D printing technology is associated with a “balanced collaboration” mode, big data technology is more accurately described by a radial pattern, centered on the United States, and carbon nanotubes and graphene technology exhibits “small-world” characteristics in this respect. It also shows that the factors GDP per capita (GPC), R&D expenditure (RDE) and the export of global trade value (ETV) negatively affect the level of international collaboration. It could be useful for China and other developing countries to make international scientific and technological collaboration strategies and policies in the future.

For FULL-TEXT go to http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167772#sec020

Author(s): Xu Bai, Yun Liu
Organization(s): Beijing Institute of Technology
Source: PLoS ONE
Year: 2016