A compared R&D-based and patent-based cross impact analysis for identifying relationships between technologies

The planning of technological research and development (R&D) is demanding in areas with many relationships between technologies. To support decision makers of a government organization with R&D planning in these areas, a methodology to make the technology impact more transparent is introduced. The method shows current technology impact and impact trends from the R&D of an organization's competitors and compares these to the technology impact and impact trends from the organization's own R&D. This way, relative strength, relative weakness, plus parity of the organization's R&D activities in technology pairs can be identified.A quantitative cross impact analysis (CIA) approach is used to estimate the impact across technologies. Our quantitative CIA approach contrasts to standard qualitative CIA approaches that estimate technology impact by means of literature surveys and expert interviews. In this paper, the impact is computed based on the R&D information regarding the respective organization on one hand, and based on patent data representative regarding R&D information of the organization's competitors on the other hand. As an illustration, the application field ‘defence’ is used, where many interrelations and interdependencies between defence-based technologies occur. Firstly, an R&D-based and patent-based Compared Cross Impact (CCI) among technologies is computed. Secondly, characteristics of the CCI are identified. Thirdly, the CCI data is presented as a network to show the overall structure and the complex relationships between the technologies. Finally, changes of the CCI are analyzed over time. The results show that the proposed methodology has the potential to generate useful insights for government organizations to help direct technology investments.     

THE REVOLUTION WITHIN: ICT AND THE SHIFTING KNOWLEDGE BASE OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST COMPANIES

This empirical article analyses the importance of information and communications technologies (ICT) in the technological diversification trend among the world's largest manufacturing firms during the 1980s and 1990s. The objective of the research is twofold: first, to emphasise the emerging differences among technologies when companies from different industries patent outside their traditional technological capabilities; secondly, to investigate whether the tendency among large companies from all industries to patent in ICT is distinctive when compared with the tendency to patent in other technologies. We find that technological diversification in large companies has clearly occurred in ICTs. Non-ICT specialist industries increasingly develop, rather than just utilise, the cluster of ICT-related technologies. We conclude that the development of corporate capabilities in the key technologies of the emerging ICT paradigm is more widespread than previously emphasised in the literature. One implication of this observation is that technological diversification and the information revolution may be related phenomena.     

太阳能技术的合作专利分析及对策

低碳经济已经成为国际经济发展的新要求,因此,低碳技术开发日益受到世界各国的重视。太阳能技术是一种典型的低碳技术,我国经过10几年的发展,在太阳能领域取得了举世瞩目的成就,但因缺乏核心技术,目前面临着严峻的挑战。由于专利分析能客观地评价技术创新与合作水平,因此,为更好地促进我国太阳能技术的发展,基于专利分析法,对我国太阳能合作专利数据进行了分析。结果表明:我国太阳能技术的跨机构技术联系较少,"产学研"创新体系尚不成熟;政策扶持对于太阳能这种新兴低碳技术有较大的影响力;国内太阳能专利授权的技术领域主要集中在太阳能热利用,而在光伏领域的合作较少;太阳能合作专利存在较大的区域差异,应该进一步加强区域之间的技术合作和技术转移:应该加强国际技术合作。     

Technology clustering based on evolutionary patterns: The case of information and communications technologies

Technology trend analysis anticipates the direction and rate of technology changes, and thus supports strategic decision-making for innovation. As technological convergence and diversification are regarded as emerging trends, it is important to compare the growth patterns of various technologies in a particular industry to help understand the industry characteristics and analyse the technology innovation process. However, despite the potential value of this approach, conventional approaches have focused on individual technologies and paid little attention to synthesising and comparing multiple technologies. We therefore propose a new approach for clustering technologies based on their growth patterns. After technologies with similar patterns are identified, the underlying factors that lead to the patterns can be analysed. For that purpose, we analysed patent data using a Hidden Markov model, followed by clustering analysis, and tested the validity of the proposed approach by applying it to the ICT industry. Our approach provides insights into the basic nature of technologies in an industry, and facilitates the analysis and forecasting of their evolution.     

Multivariate multiple regression modelling for technology analysis

Technology analysis is important for technology management areas such as research and development strategy and new product development. So many studies on technology analysis have been used across a diverse array of fields. Most of these were based on patent analysis, which analyses patent documents using text mining and statistics. The studies on conventional patent analyses constructed models consisting of various independent variables (technologies) and one dependent variable. But in reality, we have to consider a model that includes several dependent variables at the same time, because most technologies influence each other. In this paper, we propose a methodology for patent analysis that reflects the various response technologies simultaneously. We perform multivariate multiple regression modelling in order to efficiently conduct our technology analysis. To show how our modelling can be applied to realistic context, we carry out a case study using the patent documents related to three-dimensional printing technology.     

Monitoring trends of technological changes based on the dynamic patent lattice: A modified formal concept analysis approach

The strategic importance of monitoring technological changes is highlighted given the ever faster pace and increasing complexity of technological innovation. In this respect, patent citation analysis has been the most frequently adopted tool among others. However, patent citation analysis is subject to certain drawbacks that stem from only consideration of citing-cited information and time lags between citing and cited patents. This study proposes a formal concept analysis (FCA)-based approach to developing a dynamic patent lattice that can analyze complex relations among patents and monitor trends of technological changes. The FCA is a mathematical tool for grouping objects with shared properties based on the lattice theory. The distinct strengths of FCA, vis-á-vis other methods, lie in structuring and displaying the relations among objects from a massive amount of data. For the purpose of technology monitoring, the FCA is modified to take into account time periods and changes of patent keywords. A patent context is first constructed with the aid of domain experts and text mining technique. Two types of dynamic patent lattices are then developed by executing the modified FCA algorithm. A case study of laser technology in lithography for semiconductor manufacturing shows that the suggested dynamic patent lattice has considerable advantages over conventional patent citation maps in terms of visualization and informative power.     

Patent indicators for monitoring convergence - examples from NFF and ICT

The blurring of boundaries between hitherto distinct scientific disciplines, technologies or markets is a common and powerful phenomenon. Concentrating on monitoring convergence through patent indicators, we discuss convergence with examples from the area of Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods (NFF)/Cosmeceuticals as well as information technologies, consumer electronics, and telecommunications (ICT). We analyze 7455 scientific and patent references on phytosterols with the aid of SciFinder Scholar and 3836 documents employing STN AnaVist. Furthermore, we test an IPC co-classification based approach on 859,469 ICT-related and 341,846 NFF-related patents. Our results show clear indications for convergence and a proof of principle for our monitoring concept. Academics may better evaluate environmental parameters, like cases of convergence, influencing companies' actions. Implications for practitioners are based on a more reliable assessment prior to the forming of strategic alliances or mergers and acquisitions. This could help avoid costly adventures such as the mergers and acquisitions seen in ICT.     

Unveiling the core technology structure for companies through patent information

Patent information provides an objective and public source to understand core technologies of companies. In this paper, a method is proposed for identifying core technology capabilities for a company in the semiconductor industry. The method is built on the patent similarity and K-means clustering algorithm. The indirect relations among the patents in the complex industry are considered in the method. In addition, the age of the patent is taken into account to avoid identifying aged core patents. The method is demonstrated by exploring the core technology capabilities that support the platform technology portfolio of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).     

Evaluating the competitiveness of enterprise’s technology based on LDA topic model

ABSTRACT

With the advent of the knowledge economy, technology has become the foundation of advancement for many enterprises. To maintain a lasting competitive edge, enterprises must accurately determine the competitiveness of particular technologies. However, emerging innovations are becoming more and more complex, and interdisciplinary trends complicate matters even further. In the competitiveness evaluation based on patent, traditional patent classifications are both loose and time-sensitive. In this paper, we constructed the evaluation model of enterprise’s technology competitiveness based on the technological topics generated by a latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic model. LDA topic model is able to classify technologies into narrower categories and can, therefore, provide rich information on the competitive landscape of a field. Two indexes are used to determine the technological competitiveness of an enterprise in the model – a specialisation index and a diversification index. At the same time, we explore the distribution of enterprises with different technological topics through the relative share, the technology’s appeal, and the competitive advantage that technology might give an enterprise. The empirical study on intelligent connected vehicles validates the model, and the results provide theoretical support for developing R&D strategies and/or making investment decisions.     

Exploring potential R&D collaboration partners through patent analysis based on bibliographic coupling and latent semantic analysis

The aim of the present research is to provide a new systematic methodology to explore potential Research and Development (R&D) collaboration partners using patent information. The potential R&D collaboration partners are visualised as a patent assignee level map based on technological similarity between patents by using the network analysis. The proposed framework utilises two analytic methods to measure technological similarity. The first method, bibliographic coupling analysis, measures technological similarity based on the citation relationship using patent bibliographic information. Second, latent semantic analysis is utilised based on semantic similarity using patent textual information. The fuel cell membrane electrode assembly technology field is selected and applied to illustrate the proposed methodology. The proposed approach allows firms, universities, research institutes and governments to identify potential R&D collaborators as a systematic decision-making support tool.     

本信息通信技术产业的规划及发展趋势

随着科技的发展,信息通信技术已经深入到了各个行业,对人们的生活、社会生产以及整个产业结构都产生了重大的影响。近年来,日本政府出台了一系列信息通信技术产业的战略规划,其未来重点发展领域为：云计算及大数据处理技术,智能电网、智能交通,低成本、低能耗、小型化的超级计算机,智能机器人及柔性制造系统,数字化智能家电以及汽车产业等。日本政府将加强信息通信技术与本国制造业以及其他传统优势领域的融合,在推动重点产业发展的同时,主要考量的是利用信息通信技术进一步提高国民生活的质量。     

Patent text mining and informetric-based patent technology morphological analysis: an empirical study

Patent technology morphological analysis utilises the advantages of both patent information analysis and morphological analysis to provide more detailed information on current and future patent technology. Current patent technology morphological analysis methods are largely reliant on manual expertise in the construction of morphological boxes with few approaches to the evaluation of future morphological configurations. We developed a patent text mining and informetric-based patent technology morphological analysis technique. We defined the basic parameters of the morphological box as the factors in factor analysis, with a patent keywords matrix, and the clusters in clustering analysis with factor scores. Patent citation, year of patent registration, keyword frequency, and contributing factors were used to evaluate future morphological configurations. We used an empirical study of liquid crystal display wide viewing angle patents to validate our method. The Thomson Reuters Derwent Innovation Index was used to collect patent text datasets. Our study indicates that this method is feasible for the implementation of patent technology morphological analysis. Our method provides advantages in terms of cost and time reductions during morphological box construction and more flexible methods for evaluating morphological configurations. We discuss problems and possible development of our method in the last section.     

考虑关键核心技术发展的我国集成电路产业政策效力研究

基于专利数据识别集成电路产业关键核心技术，构建技术发展水平评价指标体系并评估关键核心技术发展水平。进一步基于13项关键核心技术对产业政策进行分解匹配，测度各技术环节政策措施间协调度，并实证分析政策措施及其协调度对关键核心技术发展水平的影响。结果表明，我国集成电路产业各关键核心技术差距明显，技术发展水平相对较低；规划引导措施对关键核心技术发展存在显著正向影响，监管认证、税收优惠、规划引导与技术支持措施间协调情况对关键核心技术发展具有显著负向影响，现有金融支持、技术支持措施与其它措施间协调情况较差，不利于关键核心技术发展水平提升。未来政策应鼓励创新主体加大研发投入力度，及时更新监管认证措施并加强对金融支持等措施的监督，为关键核心技术发展提供更强有力的政策保障。     

社会资本对专利合作二元关系的影响:吸收能力、保护强度的调节效应

专利合作是社会、技术、制度三大因素交互作用的结果，但多因素间的交互机制并没有得到充分研究。整合三方因素，探究不同吸收能力和保护强度下社会资本对专利合作关系的影响效应，并以石墨烯领域为实证对象，采用指数随机图模型，检验理论假设。实证结果表明：社会资本对专利合作具有直接影响。其中，度中心性、三角结构嵌入正向促进专利合作，结构洞、星型结构嵌入反向抑制专利合作；吸收能力正向调节结构洞对专利合作的抑制效应；吸收能力和保护强度共同正向调节度中心性对专利合作的促进效应。     

The role of new ICTs in the sustainable development of industrial cluster： a case study of Yangxunqiao textile cluster

The wide application of new information and communication technologies （ICTs） has been argued to be critical in local economic development, while the application of new ICTs will affect the development of industrial cluster, especially those small and medium-sized enterprises （SMEs）. This paper examines Yangxunqiao textile cluster located in Zhejiang Province as a case study to focus on the role of ICTs in the sustainable development. We argue ICTs application in firms boost flexible and customized production approach, improve e-commerce market channel and raise supply chain management. We also pay special attention to the spatial implication of ICTs adoption in industrial cluster, and suggest that application of ICTs tend to lead to further clustering of SMEs in the location with mature production chain. Our analysis shows that new ICTs are a facilitator in the sustainable development of the industrial cluster.     

Budget impact analysis of darbepoetin alfa every 3 weeks versus epoetin alfa every week for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced anaemia from a US payer's perspective

Abstract

Objective: This analysis was conducted to compare the direct medical costs of treatment with darbepoetin alfa every 3 weeks (Q3W) and epoetin alfa every week (QW) in patients with chemotherapy-induced anaemia (CIA) from the payer's perspective.

Methods: An analysis was conducted from a US health plan perspective to compare the annual budget impact for CIA with darbepoetin alfa Q3W and epoetin alfa QW over a 16-week treatment period. Dosing regimens were obtained from registration clinical trials.

Results: Mean doses, including dose adjustments, were 375.6 μg Q3W for darbepoetin alfa and 43,187 U QW for epoetin alfa. Costs of medical resources included drug acquisition and administration costs. The base case analysis resulted in a per-patient budget impact of $8,544 and $8,667 for darbepoetin alfa and epoetin alfa, respectively. Per member per month cost was $0.90 for darbepoetin alfa and $0.91 for epoetin alfa, based on an estimate of 2,735 CIA patients in a health plan population of 2.17 million. The analysis was most sensitive to drug dose, treatment period and drug price.

Conclusions: Results suggest that per-patient direct medical costs of CIA treatment, when initiated at labelled starting doses, are comparable for darbepoetin alfa Q3W and epoetin alfa QW.     

绿色与非绿色技术对后续创新影响的比较——“厚此薄彼”还是“双赢策略”

尽管绿色技术一直被认为具有广阔的发展前景,但这些技术在企业间的扩散率却很低。企业在非绿色与绿色技术创新关系上存在“厚此薄彼”的现象。基于1992—2019年中国制造业上市公司专利数据研究发现,相较于非绿色技术,绿色技术的前向引用次数更多,且产生了更大的知识溢出效应,对整个社会后续创新具有更大的正向影响力。此外,由于高能耗行业存在转化成本高、自身知识储备不足等问题,随着能耗水平提升,绿色技术对后续创新的正向影响力逐渐减弱。相较于非国有控股企业,国有控股企业绿色技术对后续创新产生了显著正向影响。该结论对政府设计绿色与非绿色创新“双赢策略”,促进企业从“厚此薄彼”转向绿色与非绿色技术双创新具有重要意义。     

基于K-means与技术生命周期的技术预见方法研究——以水体净化技术为例

预见水体净化技术发展趋势有助于实现“美丽中国”建设目标。已有技术预见方法缺乏定量客观依据,相关评判指标也不够全面。从Innography数据库检索2008-2019年发布的3552个污水处理技术专利,运用多维标度分析和K均值聚类法,基于专利静态指标分析专利技术发展潜力,采用技术生命周期分析法从动态视角判断每类技术的发展前景。研究发现：①污水与污染物双重回收可持续性技术在多个静态评价指标方面均优于其它技术,且处于从引入期到发展期的过渡阶段,具有较大的发展空间;②以去除特定污染物为目标的功能单一技术已被淘汰,市场开始应用污水处理原理不同的多种技术联合处理方式。据此,提出企业应选择污染物回收率高、二次污染物排放少、整体“净效益”为正的污水处理技术,并采取新旧技术联合处理方式降低企业采用新技术的转换成本。     

A qualitative cross-impact approach to find the key technology

This article presents a qualitative analysis method based on fuzzy relations for a cross-impact model designed for a technology impact assessment. The cross-impact knowledge is often uncertain or fuzzy when dealing with future events. Assessing the cross-impact relationships among future technologies creates a more uncertain or fuzzy situation because of the time and the uncertainty involved in evaluating future technologies. In addition, experts prefer to use linguistic terms or fuzzy values in their predictions. Thus a cross-impact matrix is represented as fuzzy relations on causal concepts. We therefore develop inference algorithms based on fuzzy relations and show a simple technology assessment example to illustrate this approach. This approach is useful in finding the key technology because it considers not only the direct impact but also the indirect impact.