Patent Families Research Articles

Discovering technology opportunities of latecomers based on RGNN and patent data: The example of Huawei in self-driving vehicle industry

Emerging technologies provide competitive opportunities for latecomers to catch up with leading giants. As most of the extant literature indicated, types of single-dimensional relations from patent data have been revealed in technology opportunity discovery (TOD) research. Still, few have been aware of the more complex characteristics extracted from higher-dimensional patent information such as the patentee-technology relation. To derive this valuable relation for more robust results, this article introduces a novel TOD method, utilizing a recursive graph neural network (RGNN) to transform this high-dimensional information into measures of heterogeneity as internal capability, and combining it with external challenges evaluated by the competitiveness index, to identify technological opportunities. Taking the self-driving vehicle (SDV) industry with 33,347 patent families from 2010 to 2021 as the initial dataset, it shows significant performance promotions compared to previous analogous TOD models. Meanwhile, tested by recent filing patent data, the predicted opportunities are consistent with Huawei and other enterprises. Upon illuminating the intense technological competition situation among the preeminent SDV firms worldwide as a case exploration, this research contributes theoretical and practical views to the TOD research and network analysis.

Wake-up of sleeping beauty patent families: The global non-equilibrium diffusion of technological knowledge

Transformative technologies are the key to leading future technology innovation and economic development. However, with the exchange of technological knowledge among countries and the explosive growth of patented technology, the uneven flow and application of technology across geographic regions has become increasingly apparent, making it more and more difficult to track and absorb potentially transformative technology (PTT). As a proxy, the wake-up trajectories of the sleeping beauty patent family (SBPF) reflect the unbalanced distribution and application of PTT but still lack in-depth discussion. Therefore, this study adopted the parameter-free criteria to identify SBPFs and revealed the globalized diffusion patterns of PTT behind SBPFs' wake-up time and pace trajectories by taking “Polymerase Chain Reaction” technology as an example. The findings show that SBPFs’ wake-up has five-time and four-spatial trajectories and presents a small-scale diffusion in local areas. Meanwhile, PTT shows five diffusion patterns, achieving an unbalanced and centralized diffusion worldwide. These provide theoretical support for predicting the global development of PTT, and practical guidance for choosing technical direction, grasping market opportunities, and optimizing the national innovation environment.

Analysis of Historical Patenting Behavior and Patent Characteristics of Computer Architecture Companies—Part XII: Patent Families

Analysis of Historical Patenting Behavior and Patent Characteristics of Computer Architecture Companies—Part XII: Patent Families

Family first: Defining, constructing, and applying historical patent families

The article presents a novel method that enables the formation of historical patent families. Patent families are useful for studying the value of inventions and identifying key technologies, as they indicate geographic diffusion and higher patenting costs. The concept of patent family has not been employed in historical contexts as historical sources generally lack information about priority rights. The article provides a definition of a historical patent family, where patent families incorporate patents with the same invention core. The method is applied and evaluated by constructing Swedish patent families in 1885-1914 with historical patent data from Finland and the United States. Moreover, the article introduces the Patent Diffusion Index (PDI), which is an indicator of historical patent families which can be used to study the sequence and pace of market entry. The article exemplifies how historical patent families open novel perspectives on patent value and technology diffusion in contrast to current indicators, such as patent fees, which usually are bound to national contexts. The method is applicable to any national patent data, and patent drawings are suggested as an effective way to form historical patent families.

Exploration of hydrogen technology diffusion and network characteristics across multiple channels

This study investigates the diffusion and network structure of hydrogen technology from 1980 to 2022. Hydrogen fuel cell technology has the shortest diffusion cycle and high global acceptance. Production technology shows significant global demand, particularly within regional patent families. In contrast, hydrogen storage and fuel cell technologies have more concentrated diffusion, indicating higher adaptation thresholds. Japanese firms are crucial in spreading storage and production technologies, while U.S. enhances diffusion through licensing and transfer. Hydrogen refrigeration technology exhibits a more dispersed bidirectional network. Hydrogen production and fuel cell technologies demonstrate notable activity and network scale in the global market. This research provides valuable insights into the global development of hydrogen technology.

Firms’ patenting and collective cumulative knowledge: evidence from the largest R&D investors in the world

ABSTRACT The article discusses R&D investments’ efficiency and intellectual property rights (IPR)’ suitability. There is a debate about whether IPR systems balance private knowledge returns’ appropriation and access to cumulative knowledge to feed technological progress, thus contributing to social welfare. We analyse private R&D expenses’ productivity in terms of inventiveness and investigate whether R&D investments generate knowledge that is of any use in further knowledge creation, examining the citations received by each patent family. Exploiting data about the largest R&D investors worldwide between 2007–2015, we find that R&D investments generate cited and uncited patents with approximately equal elasticities. We observe that an increasing number of patents do not contribute to collective knowledge creation because they are uncited. Eventually, uncited patents absorb more R&D resources than cited ones. Results are robust across industries and patent offices. We posit that uncited patents are socially undesirable and suggest implications for innovation policies.

Innovative advances for neglected tropical disease (NTD): A global perspective from intellectual property

This study examines innovative advances related to neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), which have severe health, social, and economic consequences that affect more than one billion people worldwide. It addresses the 2030 Agenda for the Sustainable Development Goals in tackling some of the “Grand Challenges,” such as dengue fever (DF), one of the primary and re-emerging diseases that have advanced worldwide in recent years. One of the challenges is the requirement that high investments in innovation can be rationalized by the potential returns sustained by the intellectual property protection system. This study answers the question: “How have dengue-related innovations been approached globally from an intellectual property perspective?” Seeking to shed light on innovative advances in NTD, this exploratory study adopted a (i) longitudinal approach, assessing the global impact of DF, and (ii) historical analysis from the intellectual property perspective, seeking the effectiveness of commercially viable solutions against the disease. An extensive search was conducted in international patent databases using Questel® Orbit Intelligence software to address the proposed objective. This study selected 2307 invention patent families (FamPat) from 1993 to 2023, of which nearly half have expired or been revoked. China is the largest jurisdiction, with 415 FamPat filings. However, many regions with a high global burden of DF lack intellectual protection for DF-related innovations. Although the number of Fampat is relatively high for DF, and the interaction between universities, government, and private companies shows the potential development of an innovation ecosystem, few technological solutions are available. This study concludes that the capacity to absorb knowledge influences the effectiveness of making a technology available as a commercial product.

Geostrategic study of the evolution of energy harvesting systems based on the patent activity of flywheels and regenerative shock absorbers

This paper analyses the technological activity on energy harvesting and storage systems, such as flywheels and regenerative shock absorbers, for support of renewable energy and electric vehicle applications. The activity is analyzed based on the evolution of the patents over the last 20 years, based on databases such as Patbase and Derwnet. The data reveal that less than 50 % of the total flywheels patents and utility models are granted. China is identified as the leading innovator in this area, followed by the United States, Japan, and Germany, which collectively account for 84 % of all patent families. A ranking of related companies and institutes is dominated by Chinese companies such as CANDELA (SHENZHEN) TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION CO., SHENYANG WEIKONG NEW ENERGY TECH CO., followed by German and American companies such as LUK LAMELLEN, VYCON, Siemens, and Caterpillar Inc. The leading regions on regenerative shock absorbers technologies are Germany, China, USA, and the European Patent Office (EPO). The study shows a leadership of Germany accounting for 39 % of the priority patents. The study also identified the top 20 applicants with the highest number of patent families, which included European companies such as SCHAEFFLER AG, HYDAC, VOLKSWAGEN AG, and Continental Automotive GmbH.

Characterization of the technological domain of relational citation analyses: A study of stem cell patents

This research aims to analyze the contribution of univariate and relational citation analysis methods, applied to patents, for the identification and characterization of scientific-technological domains, in documents indexed in the Derwent Innovation Index database. The adopted method was patentometrics associated with bibliometrics, using joint analysis of the relational bibliometric citation methods: co-citation and bibliographic coupling. The corpus of the study is composed of 144 patent families. Through the bibliographic coupling, 5 theme clusters and researchers with well-defined thematic domains were observed. Employing co-citation, 23 clusters were identified, characterizing the epistemic domains related to technological currents in which stem cell inventors operate. Such results allowed us to prospect the scientific-technological scenario in this theme, which can illustrate some institutions’ innovation potentials and explain who the actors at the forefront of such research are. It is proposed that applying this methodology allies to topic modeling techniques.

The Technology Innovation of Hybrid Electric Vehicles: A Patent-Based Study

A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a relatively practical technology that has emerged as electric vehicle technology has gradually matured. The analysis of the HEV patent lifecycle is crucial for understanding its impact on the development of this technology. This lifecycle tracks the progress of HEV technologies from their inception and patenting, through their market adoption, and to the expiration of their patent protection. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the technology lifecycle of the HEV industry using the growth S-curve method. The purpose of this study is to describe the technological lifecycle trajectory and current stage of the HEV industry, as well as the technical stages of each sub-technology, to facilitate better decision making. As part of this study, we used patent family data collected from the Derwent Innovation Index database from 1975 to 2022 and established an S-curve model for HEVs and their sub-technologies using logistic regression. In 2022, the technological maturity of HEVs reached 44%. The sub-technologies with the most substantial diffusion capabilities are energy management, propulsion systems, and cooling circuits. According to predictions, the saturation period for the patent family quantity related to HEVs is estimated to be around 53 years.

Mesenchymal stem cell-derived cell-free technologies: a patent landscape.

Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSC) play a pivotal role in regenerative therapies. Recent studies show that factors secreted by MSC can replicate their biological activity, driving the emergence of cell-free therapy, likely to surpass stem cell therapy. Patents are an objective measure of R&D and innovation activities, and patent mapping allows us to verify the state of the art and technology, anticipate trends, and identify emerging lines of research. This review performed a search on Derwent World Patents Index™ and retrieved 269 patent families related to the MSC-derived cell-free products. Analysis reveals an exponential increase in patents from the mid-2010s, primarily focusing on exosomes. The patent's contents offer a great diversity of applications and associated technologies by using the products as medicinal agents or drug delivery systems. Nevertheless, numerous application branches remain unexplored, suggesting vast potential for cell-free technologies alone or combined with other approaches.

Analysis of Historical Patenting Behavior and Patent Characteristics of Computer Architecture Companies—Part X: Patent Families

Analysis of Historical Patenting Behavior and Patent Characteristics of Computer Architecture Companies—Part X: Patent Families

AN ALTERNATIVE MODELING OF THE INNOVATIVE POTENTIAL OF COMPANIES

Modern economic conditions require the testing and introduction of new methods to find ways to achieve a prolonged effect in terms of ownership and investment attractiveness. The purpose of the article is to develop theoretical and methodological tasks regarding ways to maximize the investment attractiveness of companies, using external search information about the state of innovation potential of companies with different levels of economic development and the selection of logically justified descriptors of influence.We have defined the principles of the author's concept - Unified concept of building innovation potential - (UKDIP), the essence of which is to find unified ways to increase the innovative potential of business entities, at the expense of descriptors of the state of the innovation sector (gross domestic expenditure on R&D, the number of researchers, the number of government researchers, number of triadic patent families). We confirmed the relationship between the meta-factors of innovation using the foundations of the implicit theory. Using the clustering method, we have formed 4 latent clusters with varying degrees of investment attractiveness. The approach defined by us can serve as one of the options for effective methods of researching the influence of factors that contribute to the growth of the innovative potential of individual companies and, consequently, the national economy as a whole.

Analysis of Historical Patenting Behavior and Patent Characteristics of Computer Architecture Companies—Part IX: Patent Families

Analysis of Historical Patenting Behavior and Patent Characteristics of Computer Architecture Companies—Part IX: Patent Families

Mapping the development of hydrogen-based technologies (HBTs) through patent analysis

PurposeThis paper aims to map the evolution of hydrogen-based technologies (HBTs) by examining the patenting activity associated to these technlogies from 1930 to 2020. In doing so, the study provides a novel perspective on the development of HBTs and offers implications for managers and policymakers.Design/methodology/approachWe collected patent data at the level of patent families (PFs). Our sample includes 317,089 PFs related to hydrogen production and 62,496 PFs to hydrogen storage. We examined PF data to delineate the state of the art and major technical advancements of HBTs.FindingsOur analysis provides evidence of an increasing patenting activity in the area of HBTs, hence suggesting relatively high levels of expectations on the economic potential of these technologies. US and Japan hold the largest proportion of PFs related to HBTs (about 60%), while European applicants hold the highest proportion of highly cited PFs (about 60%). While firms represent the applicant with the highest share of PFs, our analysis reveals that firms holding HBT PFs are primarily from the chemical sector.Research limitations/implicationsWhile our analysis is limited to examining patent data which capture some aspects of the innovation activity around HBTs (namelly, patented inventions), our study enriches existing literature by performinng a patent analysis on a much larger sample of data when compared to previous studies.Practical implicationsTwo main implications emerge from our study. Firstly, there seems to be an urgent need to support the emergence of a dominant design so as to facilitate the consolidation and diffusion of the HBTs, hence the transition to a more sustainable energy production. Secondly, the majority of HBT PFs are held by a small number of countries. This, in turn, suggests opportunities to develop cross-country cooperation (e.g. international agreements, research and technology offices) to support the development and adoption of HBTs globally.Social implicationsConsidering the results obtained in this study, from a social point of view, the attention that organizations have paid to hydrogen related technologies is evident. This suggests that the development HBTs can function as a social enabler for a sustianable energy transition.Originality/valueExtant research has focused on the individual components of the hydrogen chain. As a result, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the progress made in the area of HBTs. To address this gap, this study examined HBTs by focusing on both production and storage technologies since their initial developments, hence adopting an observation period of about 70 years.

Ex-ante estimating of additional remuneration for employee inventions: explanatory role of the weighted patent family size indicator

Ex-ante estimating of additional remuneration for employee inventions: explanatory role of the weighted patent family size indicator

Patentometric synthesis of upcoming technologies against tuberculosis: recommendations for public policies

Background: Pharmaceutical technologies depend heavily on patent protection for their development and further access by people. Methods: To give insights about the upcoming technologies (pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical) to fight TB this study prospected the global portfolio on TB patents registered worldwide from 2001-2021. Results: In the last two decades were registered 12,283 anti-TB patent families globally, with a peak by 2015, but almost half are inactive. 70% of the portfolio is focused on TB treatment, the remaining for diagnose or vaccine technologies. Most top-30 countries in TB assets are high-income. Holders are spread mainly in USA (43 %) and China (10%). Half of them are universities and research centers. Conclusion: The market monopoly of TB drugs by the pharmaceutical industry from high-income nations may be sustaining the obsolete portfolio of TB technologies worldwide, what favors TB strain resistance. Public policies have an important role in counterbalance this scenario by promoting research in universities and research centers, especially in mid- to low-income countries. We suggest incentives towards diagnosis and vaccine-related technologies to build a solid and effective portfolio of anti-TB patents.

Investigating diffusion and convergence trajectory of hydrogen storage technology based on patent analysis

Safe and flexible hydrogen storage technology (HST) emerges as a crucial element in driving the industrialization of hydrogen energy. Consequently, HSTs are being extensively investigated globally, with an increasing number diffusing beyond national boundaries through transnational patent applications. However, the absence of an evolutionary analysis constrains the exploration of technological opportunities in HST. In this study, we unveil the evolutionary trajectory and innovation trends of HST by analyzing its global diffusion and convergence network, utilizing patent family and IPC co-occurrence data spanning from 1993 to 2022. Our results indicate that the transnational diffusion of HST is concentrated in core countries. Japan and France emerged as dominant source countries, while China, Europe, Korea, and Canada were identified as main target countries for HST diffusion. Notably, in the past decade, China and France have experienced significant expansion in filing HST patents. However, China filed a relatively limited number of patent families, suggesting a varied level of engagement in transnational HST diffusion. Hydrogen fuel cells, storage alloys, vessels, and distribution systems constitute the primary technological domains of HST. In the initial stages, fuel cells and alloy materials dominated HST development, often converging with metal powders and heat treatment. However, since 2003, F17C, related to storage vessels, has evolved as a focal point of convergence, involving the integration of pressure tanks, filling and discharging systems, liquid transportation, gas purification, and rare earth materials. Overall, this research offers novel insights for strategizing future HST innovations.

Disruptive development path measurement for emerging technologies based on the patent citation network

Studying disruptive innovation development paths for emerging technologies helps trace and grasp key core technologies development, promoting innovation and development in emerging technologies and industries. This paper measures the innovation development path for emerging technology, including: (1) improving the triple citation network and quantifying disruptive measurement by designing a technological disruption model; (2) proposing a contraction method for the citation network from the dataset perspective; (3) proposing a method to extract the main path using technology disruption degree as a criterion for citation networks importance; (4) taking the sintering technology in 3-D printing technology as the empirical object with 12,662 patent families from 1997 to 2019. The empirical results indicate that the disruption degree value is determined by the transitive citation relationship without the co-citation relationship, and the closed-loop structures are effectively removed, thereby reducing the size of the dataset. The proposed disruption quantification method can support effective evaluation of technological innovation levels and decision-making for the research and development (R&D) direction and resource allocation.

Technological mapping of led lighting for microalgae: a survey of patent deposits

Microalgae are a significant focus in bioprocess research due to their capacity to capture atmospheric CO2 and produce valuable secondary metabolites. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have gained prominence as a light source for microalgae, offering advantages over traditional lighting due to their narrowband spectrum, along with many advantages in comparison to traditional light sources. This study examines 578 patent families related to microalgae processes with LED illumination, assessing light spectrum, microalgae species, and bioproduct yield, as well as their connection to current scientific literature. The patent analysis was conducted using Orbit Intelligence® software, and scientific research was validated using the Elsevier Scopus® database, meeting specified search criteria. Both technological and scientific advancements have occurred over the past decade. Over the last two decades, the majority of patent activity has been centered in Asia, with China leading with 333 patent filings, followed by South Korea (96) and the USA (45). However, the scientific publication landscape tells a different story, with the USA leading in publications (1693), followed by China (771), and Germany (713). Most patents relate to microalgae cultivation systems. The primary microalgae species featured in the patents include Chlorella, Arthrospira (Spirulina), and Haematococcus, with biodiesel being the most prominent bioproduct. Regarding LED light quality, the patents predominantly utilize a combination of red and blue lights in various ratios. In summary, the adoption of LED lighting in microalgae production has grown significantly in both the industrial and scientific sectors. Tailoring light emissions in microalgae cultivation proves to be a smart and cost-effective method for enhancing efficiency, and this trend is expected to continue expanding in the future.