PurposeThe purpose of this research is to establish an evaluation model for business value of a company's existing patents portfolio to improve the performance of the technology development and the company’s competitiveness through identifying the right direction for technology development.Design/methodology/approachThis research targets 11 leading companies in ten manufacturing industries and one e‐business industry and evaluates their existing patents portfolios. This research developed a core business model set by using clustering and classification. For comparative analysis, this research sets NAVER as a leading company and DAUM as a following company in e‐business industry.FindingsThis research proposes nine business model components to evaluate a patent from business perspectives. Second, by evaluating a company's existing patents portfolio in view of business model components, this research proposes the importance of business model components and developed six core business models. Through these role models, companies can analyze the directions for development in the future and find companies with similar characteristics.Originality/valueThis research develops a methodology to provide the direction for technology development of a company by evaluating technologies through the patents portfolio of a company rather than evaluating the value of a single patent. It is different from previous research that evaluates R&D from technology perspectives; this research takes account of the business value of technologies by developing tools in view of business model components.