Patents In Industry Research Articles

Overview and Toxicity Assessment of Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction of Natural Ingredients from Plants.

In different food technology unit operations, toxicity can be increased due to unwanted side reactions and is typically associated with the increased thermal energy that facilitates the latter. Authorities in food technology have not provided clear guidelines on using ultrasound (US), but they also have not prohibited its use in food processing. In this study, the source materials and ultrasound-assisted reactions reported in the literature were reviewed to investigate potential side reactions in ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE). Industrial or pilot-scale processes published in the open literature and in industry patents were also examined. UAE is a highly effective extraction method that significantly increases extraction yields. According to the literature, there is no direct evidence of the formation of toxic compounds from natural food ingredients caused by UAE. However, experimental studies are urgently needed to assess the potential accumulation of toxic substances, especially in the case of certain plants.

Exploring the technological leaders using tire industry patents: A topic modeling approach

Researchers have long been interested in the transportation industry, recognizing its significant impact on human societies. Specifically, the automobile industry and its components have garnered special attention due to the evolving nature of transportation technologies. With this in mind, this study aims to explore the current and future technologies within the tire industry as a technological-based component of the automotive industry. Additionally, the research examines the key topics, leaders of technology, and strategies of technology-owning companies in these topics. To carry out this investigation, we employed a combination of methods including patent analysis and topic modeling. The selection of leading technology companies was based not only on the number of patents but also on the impact and quality of their patents, which was carefully evaluated. By leveraging these methods and results, tire companies and other industries can gain a competitive edge in technology, acquire insights into the current and future market share of leading companies, and develop effective roadmaps for their own advancement.

Discovering patterns and trends in customer service technologies patents using large language model

The definition of service has evolved from a focus on material value in manufacturing before the 2000s to a customer-centric value based on the significant growth of the service industry. Digital transformation has become essential for companies in the service industry due to the incorporation of digital technology through the Fourth Industrial Revolution and COVID-19. This study utilised Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformer (BERT) to analyse 3029 international patents related to the customer service industry and digital transformation registered between 2000 and 2022. Through topic modelling, this study identified 10 major topics in the customer service industry and analysed their yearly trends. Our findings show that as of 2022, the trend with the highest frequency is user-centric network service design, while cloud computing has experienced the steepest increase in the last five years. User-centric network services have been steadily developing since the inception of the Internet. Cloud computing is one of the key technologies being developed intensively in 2023 for the digital transformation of customer service. This study identifies time series trends of customer service industry patents and suggests the effectiveness of using BERTopic to predict future trends in technology.

The impact of institutional proximity on digital technology innovation linkages: empirical evidence on the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao greater bay area of China

ABSTRACT Promoting digital technology innovation connections is crucial to establishing an international science, technology, and innovation hub in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and institutional disparities influence the clustering and flow of digital technology as an innovation factor. Promoting digital technology links and cooperation across cities is a practical strategy to improve the region's innovation efficiency and capacity. However, detailed research on the flow of innovation determinants such as digital technology and there is no evidence of the influence of institutional proximity on digital technology innovation connections. Based on the patent transfer data of the National Key Industry Patent Information Service Platform from 2010 to 2021, this paper constructs a new institutional proximity indicator applicable to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and other cross-system regions, applies a spatial econometric model to investigate direct and spatial spillover effects of institutional proximity on the digital technological innovation linkages. It is proved that institutional proximity has significant positive direct and spatial spillover effects on digital technological innovation linkages. The study has significant theoretical and practical implications for increasing the association and collaboration of digital technology and other innovation elements across institutional boundaries.

Enhanced industrial text classification via hyper variational graph-guided global context integration.

Joint local context that is primarily processed by pre-trained models has emerged as a prevailing technique for text classification. Nevertheless, there are relatively few classification applications on small sample of industrial text datasets. In this study, an approach of employing global enhanced context representation of the pre-trained model to classify industrial domain text is proposed. To achieve the application of the proposed technique, we extract primary text representations and local context information as embeddings by leveraging the BERT pre-trained model. Moreover, we create a text information entropy matrix through statistical computation, which fuses features to construct the matrix. Subsequently, we adopt BERT embedding and hyper variational graph to guide the updating of the existing text information entropy matrix. This process is subjected to iteration three times. It produces a hypergraph primary text representation that includes global context information. Additionally, we feed the primary BERT text feature representation into capsule networks for purification and expansion as well. Finally, the above two representations are fused to obtain the final text representation and apply it to text classification through feature fusion module. The effectiveness of this method is validated through experiments on multiple datasets. Specifically, on the CHIP-CTC dataset, it achieves an accuracy of 86.82% and an F1 score of 82.87%. On the CLUEEmotion2020 dataset, the proposed model obtains an accuracy of 61.22% and an F1 score of 51.56%. On the N15News dataset, the accuracy and F1 score are 72.21% and 69.06% respectively. Furthermore, when applied to an industrial patent dataset, the model produced promising results with an accuracy of 91.84% and F1 score of 79.71%. All four datasets are significantly improved by using the proposed model compared to the baselines. The evaluation result of the four dataset indicates that our proposed model effectively solves the classification problem.

Standard Essential Patents: Returning to the Basics on Unwired v Huawei

Abstract Standard essential patents have become an extremely crucial element in developing modern technologies and standardization processes. This article examines the importance of standardization and standard essential patents in developing technologies and their effect on the legal jurisprudential environment. The introduction emphasizes the role of standardization in promoting the adoption of various essential technologies. Additionally, it focuses on the significance of standard essential patents that safeguard the technologies underlying such standards. The discussion delves into a particular legal case involving Unwired Planet’s licensing campaign for standard essential patents in the communication industry, emphasizing the judgments handed down by the UK Supreme Court. The analysis further investigates critical issues involved in the decision, such as jurisdiction over global licensing, non-discrimination under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms, and the flexibility of fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory negotiations. The UK Supreme Court’s ruling clarifies maintaining a proper equilibrium between the interests of SEP holders and encouraging fair and reasonable licensing practices.

Breakthrough inventions in solar PV and wind technologies: The role of scientific discoveries

Breakthrough patents are highly influential patents with regard to further technology development. However, there is so far insufficient evidence about the driving forces for the creation of a breakthrough patent. We state that the probability of creating breakthrough patents is driven by the firms' closeness to science. In order to test this hypothesis, in a first step, we identify breakthrough patents based on forward citations. Subsequently, we estimate firm heterogeneity with regard to the probability to create breakthrough inventions based on a firm's closeness to science as well as on other potentially driving factors such as the tendency for international cooperation and the average number of people involved. Thereby we distinguish the solar PV industry (analytic knowledge-base) from the wind industry (synthetic knowledge-base). We find that closeness to science is more relevant in the wind industry to create breakthrough patents where technology development mostly relies on engineering knowledge. Furthermore, our results indicate that technological specialization is more advantageous for breakthrough creation in photovoltaics, while breakthrough patents in wind industry correlate with a broader knowledge-base.

A Business Strategy Framework for Patent Pooling in the Solar Cell Supply Chain

In the green energy sector, which includes the solar cell industry, effectively combining the patents of various manufacturers within the supply chain to collectively create sustainable patent market value is of paramount importance. This study aimed to establish a business strategy framework for project-based licensing through the analysis of solar cell patents and the integration of supply chain manufacturers’ patents, with the goal of collectively creating market value for patents in a sustainable manner. The research methodology included analysis of the literature and focus group discussions. The study began with an analysis of solar cell industry patents from the past decade using the WIPS Global Patent database to identify projects with the highest patent count. Subsequently, through the use of focus group discussions, the feasibility of a patent pool strategy within the supply chain was explored. Finally, a strategy framework was proposed for project-based patent pool licensing, focusing on the top 15 projects with the highest count of 5579 patents. The results indicate that adopting this strategy framework for supply chain manufacturer patents can result in higher commercial patent value.

How construction and demolition waste management has addressed sustainable development goals: Exploring academic and industrial trends

With the rapid growth of the construction industry and urbanization, the construction and demolition waste (CDW) has constituted the most major solid waste flow in the world. The unsustainable management of CDW causes serious societal and environmental issues, as well as leads to resource waste, which directly and indirectly impact on United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Due to the awareness of the destructive effect by CDW, the academic and industry have devoted to offer a sustainable pathway for CDWM, which characterizes minimizing carbon footprints as well as proposing circular approaches. In this context, CDW can be reused, recycled and recovery as a value resource. Therefore, this study proposed a unique research method that combines qualitative and quantitative approaches in the form of bigdata analysis and machine learning, which aims to explore the CDWM related knowledge and innovation from academic and industrial perspective respectively. Especially, what is different trends in CDWM-related of academia and industry between pre- and post-SDGs declaration era(s)? What aspects of SDGs have been addressed by academia and industry in pre- and post-SDGs declaration era(s)? The study witnessed that a 350% increase in the growth of academic literature and a 278% increase in the growth in industrial patents compared to pre-SDGs declaration period. In the academia, the emerging topics of research has shifted to management, circular economy, life cycle assessment, and ETC. Similarly, patent citation illustrated that the attention of stakeholders on CDWM in the construction industry has shifted from a linear point to a circular view. Moreover, the result showed that SDG6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and SDG11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) have noted as most seriously addressed concerns by academia and industry.

A patent portfolio value analysis based on intuitionistic fuzzy sets: An empirical analysis of artificial intelligence for healthcare

Evaluating patent assets from the perspective of a patent portfolio is an emerging research direction and also a concrete practical example of open innovation theory, which presents the main form of encouraging more innovation entities to participate and further innovate by disclosing technological innovation information. For a better understanding of the patent portfolio value system at the quantitative level, this paper attempts to explore the relationship between the patent portfolio and the open innovation environment of industrial clusters, thus proposing a dynamic patent value evaluation method. Therefore, through focusing on the field of artificial intelligence for healthcare, this paper implements the evaluation process based on collecting relevant patent data and building an intuitionistic fuzzy set evaluation system. The evaluation results provide a value ranking for the patent portfolio, which helps decision-makers to carry out industrial patent layout planning and implement patent licensing strategies orienting to open innovation.

An Evolutionary Analysis of Higher-Order Interaction Collaborative Innovation Networks in China’s New Energy Vehicle Industry

As a manifestation of technological innovation achievements, patents reflect the frontier of technological development in the field. The aim of this research is to investigate the spatial evolution of patent collaboration networks and cooperation activities in the Chinese new energy vehicle (NEV) industry. We hypothesize that the higher-order collaboration networks will exhibit the formation of triangle groups centered around core nodes and the emergence of key edges indicating their importance. Key organizations and partners will play a significant role in shaping the future direction of cooperative innovation. The research utilizes data on collaboration patents in the NEV industry in China and constructs higher-order interaction collaboration innovation networks. The spatial evolution of networks and patent cooperation activities are examined using simplex methods. The results indicate that the generalized degree distribution of nodes and edges follows a power-law distribution. Two-dimensional simplex networks gradually form triangle clusters centered on core nodes and key edges. Large companies and research institutes prefer high-depth collaboration, while universities prefer high-breadth collaboration. Furthermore, the development of the new energy vehicle industry has gradually shifted from the eastern region to the central region. In the two-dimensional simplex network, Beijing and Jiangsu play a crucial role as key bridges in fostering stable and deep collaborations. The findings of this study shed light on the spatial evolution of patent collaboration networks and cooperation activities in the Chinese NEV industry. The identification of key organizations and partners, as well as the central positions of certain regions, provides valuable insights for innovation organizations in navigating innovation development and selecting collaboration partners.

The Impact of Utility Model Patent Quality on Export Performance in China: A Moderated Mediation Effect Model

Utility model patent quality is vital for emerging countries to cultivate a strong domestic market and increase openness. Given China’s high-quality development, this study incorporates enterprise utility model patent quality and export domestic value-added rate (DVAR) into a unified analysis framework to explore their relationship using authorized patent data and financial and customs data of Chinese industrial enterprises from 2002 to 2014. The utility model patent data used to support this study’s findings were provided by the Incopat Patent Database, while the enterprise financial data and customs data were supplied by the RESSET Database. The empirical results show that: (i) utility model patent quality significantly contributes to enterprises’ export DVAR; (ii) factor-intensive heterogeneous analysis indicates that the utility model patent quality of capital-intensive enterprises has a more significant promotion effect on DVAR; (iii) the price–cost markup and the relative price of intermediate goods are crucial domestic channels for utility model patent quality to promote DVAR; and (iv) market segmentation moderates the mediating role of the domestic intermediate relative price. Therefore, the government should further improve the utility model system, focus on increasing domestic market advantages, and develop industry-specific patent guidance policies. This study contributes to the literature by exploring the influence of utility model patent quality on enterprises’ DVAR using an optimized utility model quality index, providing policy references for optimizing China’s utility model patent system and upgrading the import gains of enterprises. However, this study has some limitations, and future research should strengthen the subdivision of utility model patents in different industries and explore the economic performance of the combination of inventions and utility models.

Ongoing Challenges of Laser-Based Powder Bed Fusion Processing of Al Alloys and Potential Solutions from the Literature-A Review.

Their high strength-to-weight ratio, good corrosion resistance and excellent thermal and electrical conductivity have exponentially increased the interest in aluminium alloys in the context of laser-based powder bed fusion (PBF-LB/M) production. Although Al-based alloys are the third most investigated category of alloys in the literature and the second most used in industry, their processing by PBF-LB/M is often hampered by their considerable solidification shrinkage, tendency to oxidation, high laser reflectivity and poor powder flowability. For these reasons, high-strength Al-based alloys traditionally processed by conventional procedures have often proved to be unprintable with additive technology, so the design and development of new tailored Al-based alloys for PBF-LB/M production is necessary. The aim of the present work is to explore all the challenges encountered before, during and after the PBF-LB/M processing of Al-based alloys, in order to critically analyse the solutions proposed in the literature and suggest new approaches for addressing unsolved problems. The analysis covers the critical aspects in the literature as well as industrial needs, industrial patents published to date and possible future developments in the additive market.

Collaborative relationship discovery in green building technology innovation: Evidence from patents in China's construction industry

Green building technologies (GBTs) have grown rapidly due to accelerating climate change and environmental pollution. Under the background of double carbon, innovation in GBTs have become the general trend of sustainable development in the construction industry. Inter-organizational collaboration can not only of great significance to take advantage of innovation resources of the stakeholders involved, but also has a pivotal role in reducing costs and containing associated risks. However, little research has shed light on the underlying patterns and complex mechanisms of collaborative relationships in GBTs innovation. The aim of this study is to explore the structural characteristics, evolution laws and patterns of GBTs collaborative innovation through longitudinally tracking research on China's construction industry, and in turn, reveal the complicated collaboration mechanism of stakeholders in inter-organization. Therefore, this study establishes the GBTs collaborative innovation network model via patents in DII database. Combined with social network analysis method, the temporal evolution characteristic and spatial evolution pattern of the GBTs collaborative innovation network are quantitatively revealed. The results demonstrate that GBTs collaborative innovation gradually expands with a three-stage trend in 2006–2021. State Grid Corp. China in particular exerts a significant influence and collaborative innovation among various stakeholder, such as the general contractors and research institutions becomes the dominant force. In addition, the geospatial distribution is quite different. Beijing has a central position and is continuously strengthening. In terms of spatial pattern evolution, most of the eastern regions with high breadth-high depth are not only the center of information exchange, but also the bridge for inter-provincial resource exchanges. This study enriches the existing literature on the innovation in GBTs and helps us better understand the evolutionary mechanism of GBTs collaborative innovation and provides a useful reference for stakeholders to establish relational contracts in innovation in GBTs. It is of great significance to allocate innovation resources more efficiently and promote the sustainable development of the construction industry.

The temporal value of local scientific expertise

Abstract Inventors located in a vibrant scientific community enjoy faster access to relevant publications. The key role of the local scientific community is to provide access to global knowledge and not necessarily to feed the colocated inventors with direct inputs. We develop the logic for these effects and provide empirical tests using dyads of publication and patent data. We develop a model that links scientific knowledge, codified through publication, to industry’s inventive activity. Our analysis includes three key steps. First, we characterize the knowledge profile of local expertise for French NUTS3 jurisdictions. Second, we match scientific publications to industrial patents to consider the specific scientific knowledge useful to industrial invention. Finally, we examine the extent to which the presence of a local related scientific knowledge base provides utility for local inventions. Specifically, we consider the ability of local inventions to more rapidly avail themselves of scientific knowledge when located in a munificent location. We find that location reduces the timing to access to relevant worldwide publications by almost 1 year. Thus, colocation with scientific experts provides inventors a timing advantage by allowing earlier exploitation of recent global scientific discoveries.

Original but of low value: the paradox of science-industry collaborative patents

This article presents a comprehensive analysis of science-industry collaborative patents filed between 1978 and 2015 (granted up to 2020) at the European Patent Office (EPO) in four major European countries (Germany, France, Italy, and the UK) and in the US.We focus on three dimensions regarding patent quality: the knowledge base, the technological impact, and the economic value. Our findings reveal that, on average, science-industry collaborative patents demonstrate higher levels of sophistication and originality than other industry patents. However, they tend to have a similar impact and, depending on the measures considered, an economic value that is either comparable or lower. Furthermore, if we look at the experience of private companies when collaborating with academic institutions, we observe that more experienced collaborations tend to yield patents that are slightly less sophisticated and impactful, but which possess higher economic value. We discuss various potential explanations for these findings and their implications for future research.JEL classification: O31, O34.

The importance of possessing knowledge on black-box components: The case of smartphone OEMs

Traditionally, the black-box approach in buyer-supplier relationships does not require knowledge exchanges between the actors, since the purchased module is autonomously developed by the supplier. However, the purpose of the article is to demonstrate that in high-tech sectors, despite the presence of black-box approaches, the OEM can achieve higher market performance if it develops in-house competences on purchased modules. To measure OEM component knowledge, a content analysis of patents in the smartphone industry is performed. The results show the importance for OEMs to accumulate both general and specific component knowledge, although modules are outsourced.

Learning-by-hiring: How do rival firms learn from focal firm's hiring

Previous studies provide evidence of learning from the mobility of scientists for the source and the hiring firms. However, we have a limited understanding of the competitive implications of such inter-firm mobility and associated learnings. Using a difference–in–difference approach on matched patents in the semiconductor industry in 1981–2010, we find that mobile scientists' patents receive more citations from rival firms after the mobility vis-à-vis before the mobility and vis-à-vis other similar patents. We conclude that rival firms respond to mobilities across other firms by attributing more attention to mobile scientists. Furthermore, the context of the mobility can determine the extent of response from rival firms. Rival firms are more likely to build on a mobile scientist's patents after mobility when the mobility occurs between technologically distant firms, the source firm or the hiring firm has low research experience, or the mobile scientist has considerable experience.

Coopetition and innovation in high-tech firms: What we can learn from analysis of the semiconductor industry's patents

This study investigates coopetition among the 16 semiconductor firms that figured among the top 10 by revenue from 2009 to 2019 using patent data obtained from the Derwent World Patents Index™ (DWPI), considering records available for the selected firms published and indexed up to July 26, 2020. Only 1791 (0.17%) records from a total of more than 1.1 million have two or more of these competing firms as assignees (i.e., they are records for joint patents involving these firms), indicating the existence of coopetition in this scenario. These joint patents demonstrate coopetition between firms from different countries and in the main areas in which their patents are classified, indicating that they may coopete in those areas. Furthermore, mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures may influence coopetition and innovation, resulting in joint patents. Finally, a framework that consolidates the main findings is presented to guide future research. We contribute to the coopetition literature with novel inputs. From a managerial perspective, the findings can be used to build strategies to better exploit the potential of patents.

Evolution Characteristics of Advanced Nonferrous Metal Industry Patent Cooperation Network in China from the Perspective of Multilayer Network

The advanced nonferrous metal industry is a national strategic emerging industry, and its innovation ability is crucial to the transformation and development of downstream industries such as aerospace, rail transit, electronic information, and automobiles to the high end of the industrial value chain. The research on the evolution characteristics of its cooperative network is beneficial to the research on the mechanism of improving the innovation capability of the industry. Based on the cooperative invention patent application data in 2002–2020, using the social network analysis method and Gephi 0.9.2 visualization to construct a patent cooperation network and knowledge network, this paper analyzes the overall characteristics and evolution law of the patent cooperation network in the advanced nonferrous metal industry. It is found that, first, the structure of the innovation network in China’s advanced nonferrous metals industry is becoming more and more complex. The scale of the cooperation network and knowledge network is increasing, and the small world is obvious. Second, some innovation subjects, as key nodes, play the role of “bridge” and grasp the general direction of technology. The structure of the key nodes in the network has changed, and the cooperative innovation network of industry-university-research has gradually evolved from enterprise-led to university-led. Third, the number of technical categories has increased and the depth of technology has been enhanced in China’s advanced nonferrous metal field. Hot technical fields are characterized by high intensity, wide range, and stable advancement. Based on the research findings, some suggestions and enlightenment are put forward to promote the development of the advanced nonferrous metal industry.