RFID technology innovations: the use of patent data

Abstract

Study on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has recently gained increasing attention from both industry practitioners and academic researchers. However, despite discussions of its promising future and potential applications of RFID, to date, a surprising dearth of work has been conducted on RFID technology development from the holistic perspective. Patent analysis has long been considered to be an important method for assessing various aspects of technological change. This paper utilises rich, reliable information provided by RFID-related invention patents in the USPTO database to provide an overall picture of RFID innovations.