R&D Portfolios and Knowledge Flow of Solar Photovoltaic Companies: Patentometrics Perspective

Abstract

The current trend toward green energy is encouraging manufacturers to invest in solar photovoltaic technologies. In order to guarantee R&D and operational performance, operators should identify the technological advantages of their competitors and cooperating companies so as to conduct R&D, absorb technological knowledge of their competitors and cooperating companies, and construct portfolios of technical capabilities, which is very challenging. Therefore, from the perspective of patentometrics, this study adopts two analyses, namely the number of patents and patent citations, to discuss the technical capability of R&D portfolios and the technological knowledge flow. R&D portfolios integrate the three patent indices of technology attractiveness, relative patent position (RPP) and revealed patent advantage (RPA), and these can be used to analyze the strength and weakness of the R&D portfolio of a company in the industry. In addition, technological knowledge flow helps to construct a patent citation network through the backward citation of patents. Sources and movement directions of the technological knowledge can be measured by calculating the relative citation propensity. R&D portfolios and knowledge flow are complementary perspectives of each other and a combination of the two can effectively help identify the portfolios and monitor of the technical capabilities between solar photovoltaic companies.