Patent Classification Research Articles

Identification of building decarbonisation technologies based on SCAN algorithm

ABSTRACT Buildings are one of the most significant sources of global carbon emissions, accounting for 28% in 2021, and building decarbonisation is crucial for countries to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality. Building decarbonisation technologies play a central role in promoting the process of deep decarbonisation in the building sector. Based on the 843,821 CPC-Y02B (Decarbonisation technologies associated with buildings) patents in the CPC-Y02 patent classification system, this paper investigated the patent of building decarbonisation technology from three dimensions of technical, economic, and legal aspects and selected 10,751 high-quality core patents in the field of building decarbonisation technologies. Then, the SCAN algorithm was used to identify 23 ‘key core technologies’ and 5 ‘emerging technologies’ in the area of building decarbonisation from the constructed patent (CPC classification number) co-occurrence network. In addition, the development trends of building decarbonisation technologies were analyzed with related literature. This paper introduced the theories and methods of technology identification into the research field of building decarbonisation technology, and the results can give practical references for associated practitioners in the building sector. Future research could consider the technology identification from the whole life cycle of buildings or incorporate multivariate data to improve the current technology identification framework.

Empirical insights into industrial policy's influence on phytoprotection innovation.

Intelligent Phytoprotection is an important direction for the modern development of plant protection related disciplines, and its essence is the innovative application of new generation information technology industry, high-end equipment manufacturing industry, and digital industry related technologies in the traditional plant protection field. This article first identifies 224 International Patent Classification (IPC) Main groups in the field of intelligent phytoprotection technology based on the International Patent Classification System. And then combines with China's industrial policy practice, we explore the impact of industrial policy on the application number of invention patents in the field of intelligent phytoprotection technology using the Difference-in-difference (DID) method and the Synthetic DID method. The study results showed that the implementation of industrial policy can significantly promote the patent application activities in the intelligent phytoprotection treatment group, with an average increase of 517 invention patent applications compared to the control group that is not affected by the policy. The research conclusion of this article suggests that for countries and regions, industrial policies are an important tool for promoting the innovation and development of intelligent phytoprotection related technologies.

Inventive Activity for Climate Change Mitigation: An Insight into the Maritime Industry

Climate change mitigation is one of the most important challenges facing the modern world. It is necessary to monitor the development of new concepts and technologies and take a stab at identifying disruptive innovations, which have the potential of becoming real climate-friendly game changers. The aim of this paper is to examine the patterns of inventive activity aimed at mitigating climate change in the maritime industry with respect to other transport modes. Appropriate research tools in the area of patent analysis were selected and utilised. A new class of patents related to climate change in maritime transport (CPC-Y02T70/00) was used as a data source. The original value of the study consists of offering a complete picture of the efforts made in patenting activity in climate change mitigation in the maritime transport, with a look at leading applicants and countries, knowledge flows, the most robustly developed and underdeveloped technical fields. A map of technical knowledge flows for climate change mitigation in transport was constructed. The research results show that inventions for the maritime industry are less hermetic than those for air and road transport; however, they are not as much linked with previously developed solutions. The most intensively developed technical fields include the design and construction of watercraft hulls (1) and measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to the propulsion system (2). Among the technologies whose further development merits close attention are solutions related to electrical propulsion and wave energy. At the same time, inventive activity in the area of climate change adaptation dedicated to ports is insignificant and definitely needs more support from the community of scientists and inventors. Building knowledge based on patent information can help universities, research institutions, shipyards, manufacturers of marine equipment and other business entities to identify the technologies of the greatest potential for further development.

Patenting trends by Mexican pharmaceutical companies.

Aim: the activity of patent claims by Mexican pharmaceutical companies is unknown. Objective: analyse the trend in patents of Mexican pharmaceutical companies. Method: a search for patents was carried out in the patent database of the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property, using the list of Mexican pharmaceutical companies belonging to the Mexican Association of Pharmaceutical Research Industries, and the codes A61K, A61P and C07 of the International Patent Classification. Results: the leading companies in patent applications were Liomont, Senosiain and RIMSA; however, Mexican pharmaceutical companies claim very few patents, only 266 patent applications in the period 2000-2020, with a technological factor with a value of zero, and a commercial factor of little value. Conclusion: Mexican pharmaceutical companies lack a robust patent system, without growth, and with a low percentage of patents with high commercial value.

Classifying the Main Technology Clusters and Assignees of Home Automation Networks Using Patent Classifications

Home automation technologies are a vital part of humanity, as they provide convenience in otherwise mundane and repetitive tasks. In recent years, given the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) sectors, these technologies have seen a tremendous rise, both in the methodologies utilized and in their industrial impact. Hence, many organizations and companies are securing commercial rights by patenting such technologies. In this study, we employ an analysis of 8482 home automation patents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to extract thematic clusters and distinguish those that drive the market and those that have declined over the course of time. Moreover, we identify prevalent competitors per cluster and analyze the results under the spectrum of their market impact and objectives. The key findings indicate that home automation networks encompass a variety of technological areas and organizations with diverse interests.

Выявление перспективных способов преобразования параметров электрической энергии

This paper performs an analysis of the electric power conversion methods, and also examines the development trends of DC-to-DC, AC-to-AC, AC-to-DC and DC-to-AC power converters with the use of the International Patent Classification (2023). A comparison has been made of such different kinds of converters as power converters with intermediate conversion and without intermediate conversion into AC or DC, converters using devices of a transistor and thyristor type, and specific circuit implements corresponding to the IPC classification. Perspective directions of such converters’ development have been revealed. The analysis was carried out on the basis of the US patents databases which were formed by the authors for the IPC groups H02M3, H02M5, H02M7 within 2012 to 2023. The perspective directions were revealed by constructing time series of the US patents for the analyzed power converters and their further comparison by the issued patents number and growth patterns. As a result of research, the advantage of transistor converters circuits has been proved, the perspective development directions of the electric power parameters conversion methods as well as their implementation have been described. There was found a decrease of the issued US invention patents in the considered IPC groups by 40% within 2019 to 2022.

An ensemble framework for patent classification

An important task when a patent application arrives at a patent office is to assign one or more classification codes. This manual, intellectually demanding task needs to be supported or even fully automated by classification systems that will classify patent applications, hopefully with an accuracy close to patent professionals. Like in many other text analysis problems, in the last years, this task has been studied using deep learning techniques. However, these techniques did not manage to reach a classification accuracy high enough to totally depend on. An ensemble system that combines multiple classifiers obtaining better results could address this patent classification problem. However, this technique has not been explored in the domain of patent classification, and even in general, there are few studies focusing on the design of such systems. Our study investigates the design aspects of ensemble systems for patent classification and introduces an ensemble framework, which although is targeting the patent classification problem can be transferred to any other research domain.

PATENT SEARCH METHODOLOGY IN THE PROCESS OF CREATING COMPETITIVE INVENTIONS

The article examines the patent search technique in the process of creating competitive inventions. Regulatory documents regulating patent law, the main definitions of patent science, which are designed to familiarize beginners and student youth engaged in scientific work related to innovative inventive activity, are given.The article also highlights the issue of the inventor’s inventive activity, examines the stages of search activity in the process of creating competitive inventions. The principles of classification of inventions in accordance with the International Patent Classification of Inventions by means of the information and library system Web IRBIS are considered.Thus, inventions are classified according to thematic headings by class, which makes it possible to organize descriptions of inventions and distribute them according to technical solutions.The article also provides a method of searching for patent information of different countries by means of information and search systems and the Ukrainian information and search system SIS (special information system) UKRNOIVI (Ukrainian national office of intellectual property of innovations), which allows inventors to monitor the status of paperwork for their applications for inventions. Patent search and patent research based on modern information and search systems for patents by means of the Internet allows to prevent borrowing and plagiarism in compliance with the law “On the Protection of Rights to Inventions and Utility Models”.The described method of patent search during the creation of inventions gives the inventor a significant saving of working time spent on patent search, allows the use of modern means of information and communication technologies in the process of creating competitive inventions.
 Keywords: patent search; patent purity; patent research; information search system; national patent databases; industrial property; patents; inventions; utility models.

The U-shaped relationship between patent age and patent value: evidence from assigned patents in China

ABSTRACT We propose that opposite changes in the hazards of patent commercialization (HPC) and technology substitution (HTS) lead to a U-shaped relationship between patent age and patent value. Using a dataset of 2446 patents assigned to firms in Chinese universities from 2015-2020, our empirical results support this U-shaped relationship. Young patents with more claims are regarded as more valuable, owing to a lower HPC, and old patents with more International Patent Classification (IPC) classes are regarded as more valuable, owing to a lower HTS. Moreover, backward references had a moderate effect on the U-shaped relationship, and an increase in backward references caused the turning point to move to the right, flattening the U-shaped relationship. Interestingly, the turning point of the U-shaped relationship is around the age of 5.2 years, and the hazard of university patent invalidation in China is highest at this age.

New infrastructure-lead development and green-technologies: Evidence from the Pearl River Delta, China

Understanding the interaction between infrastructure and environment is crucial for shaping resilient cities. The solution based on emerging technologies to drive sustainable transition is a key dimension. Although green transition and the enabling effects of emerging technologies have received significant attention in environmental research and economic geography, research on the role of new infrastructure in this transition is still insufficient. This study links the new infrastructure discourse with technology discourse to establish the relationship between key technologies and the patents classification system. A spatial database of new infrastructure key technologies patents for the period of 2016–2020 is constructed consequently. Through spatial analysis and econometric methods, our research revealed the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of new infrastructure key technologies in the Pearl River Delta and their enabling effects on green technologies. This study is significant for the management of emerging technologies and green innovation transition in China in the new era. We believe that, despite differences in discourse, China's new infrastructure construction essentially aims to pursue emerging enabling technologies. The pursuit of disruptive technology and the urgency of green innovation transition are the core driving forces for China's integration into the global technology system.

Green fiscal policy and enterprise green innovation: evidence from quasi-natural experiment of China.

We aim to study the impact of green fiscal policy on enterprise green innovation by applying a time-varying difference-in-difference (DID) model, and treat the comprehensive demonstration city of fiscal policy for energy conservation and emission reduction (CPEE) in China as a quasi-natural experiment. The results show that the CPEE can significantly improve enterprise's green innovation performance of pilot area. This net policy effect is valid after a series of robustness tests to control for various potential confounding factors. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the effect of CPEE is stronger for state-owned enterprises and enterprises in high energy consumption industries or industries with higher industrial concentration. In addition, the effect of CPEE is various among different categories of green patents, which is stronger for the types of alternative energy production category, waste management category, administrative supervision and design category. The mechanism test indicates that the CPEE can improve the green innovation performance by increasing enterprise' investment in research and development, promoting territorial industrial transformation and upgrading, and enhancing enterprise executives' environmental awareness. To achieve the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, the green enabling role of fiscal reform pilot policy in transition economies and the applicability of localized policies should be excavated.

Rethinking the patent domains: An application to wind energy

Wind energy patents are conventionally defined using Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) and International Patent Classification (IPC) codes that represent wind motors (F03D) and wind energy (Y02E 10/70). This study examines whether these codes sufficiently represent the wind energy patent domain. Using a combination of keywords and classification codes identified through expert input and manual review, we construct an expanded domain with a 7.5% increase in patent count, a 6% increase in recall, and only a 1% decrease in precision for wind energy patents. We also found that the conventional domain is not unbiased; it underrepresents patenting from China and patents published since 2010. This is important because an improved patent domain allows for a holistic patent data set, which is necessary to complete a thorough analysis of the wind industry. Through this wind energy application, we extend our methodology to form a generalized patent search process that can be used to target technology domains within a patent data set.

Алгоритм обработки информации для прогнозирования развития технологий на примере теле- и радиовещания

Today, many Russian companies working in the field of software development for television and radio broadcasting can extract the necessary data on trends in their field of activity by analyzing information received from foreign competitors, for example, studying specialized popular science literature posted on the official websites of foreign competitors, when analyzing information obtained from exhibitions and presentations. However, the opportunity to comprehensively analyze the novelties of foreign developers patented in the world patent databases will give Russian companies competitive advantages in the formation of strategic development plans. It is proposed to develop a patent landscape based on the data of the global patent array (in English) in the field of television and radio broadcasting, analyze patent trends and predict the development of technologies in this area. The novelty of the developed method for predicting the development of technologies lies in the cooperation of USPTO (USA) patent clustering methods based on the international patent classification and forecasting technological trends using the generated time series. The developed method is implemented in Python; in parallelizing the process of parsing patents, the Multiprocessing library was used, Statsmodels was used to analyze data and carry out the forecasting process, and Matplotlib was used to visualize data. The MySQL database management system was chosen to organize information storage. There were processed 28,591 patents, the process of forecasting the development of television and radio technologies was tested based on the constructed time series in the interval of 2015–2020.

Obsolescence rate of sectors in patents filed in USPTO

The lifetime of a patent is 20 years, but many patents get abandoned before completing this duration. This may be in part due to the high maintenance fee required by United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), lack of demand for licensing, limited scope for workability in dynamic market situation, deficit of investment in taking it forward, change in the priorities of the inventor or emergence of more affordable or frugal competitive products. We have created a knowledge repository of abandoned patents in USPTO which are available for use by the scholars, entrepreneurs and others in the society. This repository has additional open access features compared to the earlier repository by Pearce such as the names of inventors, the country of inventors, date of abandonment along with the status of the patents, assignee history, number of citations, CPC, NBER and WIPO categories of each patent and entity status.In this paper we have analyzed some trends in the rate of abandonment over the years vis a vis non-abandoned or active patents over the years. We have also explored the number of abandoned and non-abandoned patents in different sectors based on the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) of patents. We have created a framework to classify the patents into separate categories based on the filing and abandonment rate. We have taken forward the work on patent lifecycle and used it to understand lifecycle of patent sectors. We have also created a quantitative metric, called as obsolescence rate, to identify the rising and declining sectors. Based on the obsolescence rate, sectors such as Heterocyclic Compounds (CPC category: C07D); Information Storage Based On Relative Movement Between Record Carrier And Transducer (CPC category: G11B); and Apparatus For Physical Training, Gymnastics, Swimming, Climbing, Or Fencing; Ball Games; Training Equipment (CPC category: A63B) and which are to the right of the reference line have a higher obsolescence rate and are hence declining sectors. Similarly, categories such as Computer Systems Based On Specific Computational Models (CPC category: G06 N); Systems For Controlling Or Regulating Non-Electric Variables (CPC category: G05D); and Control Or Regulating Systems In General; Functional Elements Of Such Systems; Monitoring Or Testing Arrangements For Such Systems Or Elements (CPC category: G05B) are on the left of reference line and are hence the rising sectors.

Evaluation and comparison of domestic and foreign patent portfolios based on F-term on optical lenses of competitors

This paper evaluates domestic and foreign patent portfolios owned by ten top competitors in Japan on the optical lenses of digital cameras. The objective is to establish an efficient and simple tool to provide an enterprise with the ability to investigate its competing position in order to identify its favorable research and development directions and enhance its patent application strategy.The method is to use three quantitative indicators defined by patent classifications, especially the Japanese patent classification F-term. The indicators represent the technical value of a single invention, between multiple inventions, and all inventions, respectively. Comparison of all aspects of values between Japanese and US patent portfolios are presented on two-dimensional maps.The evaluations show the performance of competitors and obtain the advisements of patent application strategy for an individual company. The results show that Jaccard index based on F-term is a very good tool for calculating the similarity between patents to obtain innovativeness. All indicators show that the thinking of Japanese competitors in R&D and patent filing strategies have high similarity, and there is currently no breakthrough between all competitors. The multi-viewpoint F-term system has resulted in Japanese companies having a large number of patents in a relatively closed environment.

TechMaps: exploring technology relationships through patent information based proximity.

Our work provides a novel method for rich information discovery about the evolution of technical fields and company developments through patent relationships. A new exploratory method and graphical tool to discover technology proximity based on patent classification information are introduced. By technology we mean a technical field (defined by an International Patent Classification-IPC-code or a combination of them) or an organization (such as a tech company, research center, or institution). A single data structure is used for characterizing both technical fields and organizations, to visualize them as items of the very same body. This new method generates two graphs: the first graph, the TechnologyMap, visualizes technology items in a 2D plot wherein technical fields and companies will appear positioned relative to each other; the. A second graph, the Focused TechnologyMap, visualizes technology items with respect to a selected one, the focus, which is located in the center of a circle whose radii correspond to the complete set of IPC codes. This article represents the process and algorithms used for production of the graphs, and solidifies the assumptions of validity by presenting two of the many successful test cases to which it was applied.

Recent trends, applications and technological evaluation of protective textile with patent analysis

PurposeThe textile sector is one of the sectors where competition is intense and requires the production of high-value-added products. This study aims to conduct patent analysis to find the technology status, recent trends, applications and technological evaluations of protective textile technologies in practice.Design/methodology/approachMore than 36,840 patent documents related to protective textile technologies are available for researchers, patent examiners and patent researchers. Patent analysis is conducted to report the technology status, recent trends and applications of protective textile technologies. This analysis provides insights into the possible future directions of protective textile technologies in practice. Additionally, association rule mining (ARM) is performed to find the hidden patterns among protective textile technologies.FindingsThe development of protective textile technologies is revealed by the technology evaluation in this study. In addition, the sub-technology classes affecting protective textile technologies are examined using the cooperative patent classification (CPC) codes of the patent documents. Technology status and recent trends of protective textile technologies are provided in detail. The results of this study show that (1) protective textile technologies are constantly being developed, (2) the working areas of medical protective textiles are increasing, (3) there are frequent studies on fabric structures for saving lives within the framework of human needs and (4) there are four technology classes, namely A41D, Y10T, B32B and A62B impacting the other technology classes related to textile technologies such as D10B, Y10T, F41H, A62D, D04H, Y10S and D10B.Originality/valueTo have a competitive advantage in the marketplace, evaluation of textile technologies is critical in developing “functionalized” and “technologized” textile products. In particular, evaluating technologies in developing protective textile products is extremely important to meet customer demands and present competitive products in the market. Examining these patents for technology developers, decision-makers and policymakers is an urgent and necessary job. However, studies examining the development of protective textile technologies with patent analysis are very limited in the literature. To fill this gap, technology status, recent trends and applications of protective textile technologies are reported based on patent analysis and ARM in this study.

MEASURING PATENT NOVELTY USING NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING

AbstractThis paper develops a novelty measure for patents. We devise a text-based novelty measure using natural language processing (NLP) techniques. The proposed method is applied on patents that belong to a common category, which represents a subset of patents under a specific patent class. We then extract the novelty-value profile of those patents and discuss a use case for product design and development (i.e., extracting patent novelty and predicting inventive value).

TechPat: Technical Phrase Extraction for Patent Mining

In recent years, due to the explosive growth of patent applications, patent mining has drawn extensive attention and interest. An important issue of patent mining is that of recognizing the technologies contained in patents, which serves as a fundamental preparation for deeper analysis. To this end, in this article, we make a focused study on constructing a technology portrait for each patent, i.e., to recognize technical phrases concerned in it, which can summarize and represent patents from a technical perspective. Along this line, a critical challenge is how to analyze the unique characteristics of technical phrases and illustrate them with definite descriptions. Therefore, we first generate the detailed descriptions about the technical phrases existing in extensive patents based on different criteria, including various previous works, practical experience, and statistical analyses. Then, considering the unique characteristics of technical phrases and the complex structure of patent documents, such as multi-aspect semantics and multi-level relevances, we further propose a novel unsupervised model, namely TechPat, which can not only automatically recognize technical phrases from massive patents but also avoid the need for expensive human labeling. After that, we evaluate the extraction results from various aspects. Specifically, we propose a novel evaluation metric called Information Retrieval Efficiency (IRE) to quantify the performance of extracted technical phrases from a new perspective. Extensive experiments on real-world patent data demonstrate that the TechPat model can effectively discriminate technical phrases in patents and greatly outperform existing methods. We further apply extracted technical phrases to two practical application tasks, namely patent search and patent classification, where the experimental results confirm the wide application prospects of technical phrases. Finally, we discuss the generalization ability of our proposed methods.

Extraction and linking of motivation, specification and structure of inventions for early design use

Novel design creations often exist in the form of patents. It is well acknowledged that patents are a great source of design inspiration, therefore designers are encouraged to engage patents early in the design process. Studies of patent analysis have been carried out to benefit engineering design activities such as patent classification, technology forecasting, idea generation and emerging design-prior art comparison. However, the design intent behind inventions has received little attention in patent analysis. Designers can gain better design insight by looking at a patent from a systematic perspective starting from design intent to principal solutions. In this paper, an approach is proposed to extract and link the knowledge conveyed within patent descriptive sections to typical early engineering design stages, namely Motivation, Specification and Structure. This knowledge is then conceptualised into TRIZ engineering parameters and reconciled functional basis to enable cross-patent analysis. When compared to expert analysis, the proposed approach achieves an average of 63% accuracy with respect to Motivation, 56% with respect to Specification function and 44% with respect to Specification flow. Potential applications of such linking for early design use are then demonstrated through a prototype knowledge network.