디지털 플랫폼 기업의 기술 역량 다각화에 관한 연구

Abstract

In the era of digital transformation, digital platform companies that started as start-ups or in-house ventures have a huge influence in various fields of our economy and life today. Their rapid growth is due not only to exogenous factors such as the development of IT technology and infrastructure, but also to the combination of their active technological innovation and diversification strategy. However, research on patent development trends of Korea's representative digital platform companies has received relatively little attention. In particular, since the 2010s, when digital transformation began in earnest, their patent trends are very important in that they show the direction and strategy of exploratory activities, but the reality is that there is still a lack of research from an integrated perspective on these areas. Therefore, this study aims to broaden the understanding of the patent strategy of digital platform companies by analyzing the patent development trends of Naver, LINE, Baemin, Kakao, Coupang, and Toss, which are representative digital platform companies in Korea. To achieve this, this study conducted text-based analysis of the patent data filed by each company. Specifically, Word Cloud analysis and Text Similarity analysis were performed to identify the key technological directions pursued by each company and analyze any similarities in their technological strategies. As a result, in the case of companies that had not yet implemented diversification, the direction of new diversification strategies could be examined through keyword analysis of filed patents. Matured companies with diversification showed a high level of similarity in patent information compared to other companies. As a result of analyzing patent information filed after 2015 compared to the entire period, it was confirmed that all companies have increased mutual similarity, suggesting that in the future, an intersection will be formed in the businesses pursued by all companies, and competition may intensify. It was confirmed that the establishment of a new strategy was required.