Nicoletta CORROCHER #
Grazia CECERE*
Cédric GOSSART*
Müge ÖZMAN*
# KITeS, Bocconi University, Milan
* Télécom Ecole de Management, Institut Mines-Télécom, Paris
An output of the ECOPATENTS project funded by ADEME http://ecopatents.wp.mines-telecom.fr/

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1. Introduction
Introduction
 Context: economic & ecological crises
 Solution: eco-innovations? (to enable decoupling)
 Ecoinnovation in the ICT sector: “green ICTs”?
 Limits of green ICTs: their own ecological impacts
 Key question: Can innovation dynamics in the green ICT sector contribute to solve the aforementioned crises?
 Objective of this paper: Analyse dynamics of innovation in green ICTs
3

ICTs & the environment
1. Introduction
Green ICTs Ecological impacts of ICTs
4

1. Introduction
Green ICTs
(hardware + software)
Reduce negative ecological impacts + create jobs:
1.
Direct impacts: ICTs reduce their own ecological impacts.
2.
Enabling impacts: ICTs are used by other sectors to reduce ecological impacts.
3.
Systemic impacts: The diffusion of ICTs enable structural changes towards sustainable development
(absolute decoupling).
Source: Hilty, L. (2008), Information Technology and Sustainability: Essays on the Relationships between
Information Technology and Sustainable Development, Norderstedt: Books on Demand.
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2. Literature
Ecoinnovation & patents
1.
Increasing number of studies using patents to analyse ecoinnovation
(cf. lit. rev. in our paper: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2117831 ).
2.
The propensity to patent varies across sectors including for eco-technologies
( => which ones are the most dynamic?
)
.
3.
Eco-innovation studies cover different technological domains, e.g. automobile, waste, water, air cleaning
( not ICTs ).
6

3. Methodology & Data
Objective & Questions
 Objective: Examine the emergence and dynamics of green ICT technological domains.
 Question: What are the patterns of innovative activity in green ICT technological domains , notably in terms of:
 Growth of patents
 Concentration of innovative activities by organizations and countries
 Entry of firms
 Technological pervasiveness
 Sources of knowledge
7

3. Methodology & Data
Data
Construction of our green ICT technological domain:
1.
WIPO Green Inventory – includes IPC codes associated with environmentally friendly technologies (6 technological fields: alternative energy production, transportation, energy conservation, waste management, agriculture/forestry, administrative/regulatory as well as design aspects, and nuclear power generation).
2.
OECD classification of ICTs - includes IPC codes associated with the ICT sector (4 technological fields: telecoms, consumer electronics, computer and office machinery, other ICTs).
8

3. Methodology & Data
Methodology
3 steps:
1.
Select EPO patents that have at least one green and one ICT technological class (at 7 digit level) granted between 1987 and 2006.
2.
We perform a network analysis on the classes, where each node is a technological class and each link represents number of patents (we select couples of classes that have at least 55 patents - top 1%) dataset includes, 3978 classes at 7 digits (795 green, 2859 ICT and 325 pure green ICT) and
13210 patents.
3.
We analyse network components (technological domains) in detail.

3. Methodology & Data
Methodology
1. Select EPO patents that have at least one green and one ICT technological class (at 7 digit level) granted between 1987 and 2006

International Patent Classification (IPC) codes
3. Methodology & Data
Green
IPC codes
ICT
IPC codes a , c

International Patent Classification (IPC) codes
3. Methodology & Data
Green
IPC codes
Pure Green
ICT
IPC codes
ICT
IPC codes b

3. Methodology & Data
Methodology
80
H01L 33/00
H01S 5/34
ICT Code Green Code
H01S 5/323 H01L 33/00
H01S 5/34 H01L 33/00
H01S 5/343 H01L 33/00
H04L 9/32 G06Q 20/00
H04L 12/58 G06Q 10/00
H04L 29/06 G06Q 10/00
H04L 29/06 G06Q 30/00
109
80
85
62
69
67
80
67
80
69
2. Network analysis:
Analyse the structural characteristics of this network.
Clusters of codes can define technology domains.

Network analysis – Detection of Green ICT domains
65 different technological fields (components):
4. Results

The components of green ICT technological fields
4. Results
15

4. Results
Patents & IPC classes in green ICT fields
Technological component
Number of
Patents
Number of
IPC classes
ICT classes
Green classes
Semiconductors 2058 1248 33% 2.4%
Pure Green ICT Other classes
4.7% 59.9 %
Arrangements for testing electric properties and locating electric faults
Secure electronic commerce
Arrangements or instruments for measuring magnetic variables
Nuclear magnetic resonance technologies
Solid state devices using organic materials
Traffic control systems
Hall effect devices
Liquid crystal displays
Technologies for total factory control
Excitation or detection systems
2849
669
705
658
470
899
284
209
75
360
1085
406
370
160
489
335
126
643
77
68
34.8%
48.1%
7.3%
12.5%
9.6%
38.8%
55.5%
1.7%
23.4%
20.6%
2.3%
1.7%
2.4%
2.5%
1%
1.2%
0.8%
0.2%
3.9%
0
4.7%
0.2%
4.6%
10%
0
2.4%
5.5%
0
0
13.2%
58.2%
50%
85.7%
75%
89.3%
57.6%
38.2%
98.1%
72.7%
66.2%
16

Patterns of Innovative Activity
The average number of patents per domain is 412, but the distribution is very skewed (a couple of domains concentrate most of the patents).
4. Results
0 20 component
40 60
17

Annual growth rate of patents in Green ICTs
(1987-2006)
4. Results
Average annual growth rate =
0,34 (34%)
18

Firms with the highest number of Green ICT patents
Firm
SIEMENS BUILDING TECHNOLOGY AS
IBM
HEARTSTREAM
HEWLETT-PACKARD
BUDERUS HEIZTECHNIK
KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS ELECTRONICS
ADVANCED CERAMICS
CANDESCENT TECHNOLOGIES
NIPPON TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE
FUJIKIN
FUJI ELECTRIC
TEKTRONIX
AT & T
MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL
FUJITSU
CENTRAL JAPAN RAILWAY
AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES
ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES
ERICSSON
CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS
Number of patents
250
237
211
208
191
190
189
188
169
163
143
139
857
694
341
339
323
272
271
123
4. Results
19

Top 3 organisations by Green ICT technological component
Technological component
Total n° of organisations
Top 3 organisations
Semiconductors 537
CANDESCENT TECHNOLOGIES
NIPPON TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE (NTT)
Arrangements for testing electric properties and locating electric faults
Secure electronic commerce
Arrangements or instruments for measuring magnetic variables
Nuclear magnetic resonance technologies
Solid state devices using organic materials
Traffic Control Systems
Hall effect devices
Liquid crystal displays
785
315
191
166
141
253
101
39
IBM
IBM
SIEMENS BUILDING TECHNOLOGY AS
HEWLETT-PACKARD
IBM
FUJITSU
FRANCE TELECOM
ADVANCED CERAMICS
HEARTSTREAM
SIEMENS BUILDING TECHNOLOGY AS
ADVANCED CERAMICS
HEARTSTREAM
KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS ELECTRONICS
EASTMAN KODAK
CAMBRIDGE DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY
3M INNOVATIVE PROPERTIES
BUDERUS HEIZTECHNIK
SIEMENS BUILDING TECHNOLOGY AS
AISIN AW
IBM
BUDERUS HEIZTECHNIK
CNRS
CELANESE
CHISSO
F. HOFFMANN-LA ROCHE
Number of patents
120
112
42
52
35
33
109
38
36
68
64
105
122
160
128
36
28
22
103
71
51
44
14
12
63
36
14
4. Results
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Top 3 innovative countries in Green
ICT technological domains
Technological domain Number of patents
Semiconductors
Arrangements for testing electric properties and locating electric faults
Secure electronic commerce
Arrangements or instruments for measuring magnetic variables
Nuclear magnetic resonance technologies
Solid state devices using organic materials
89
66
329
81
62
170
109
74
716
704
177
1151
472
329
329
220
130
345
Country
US
JAPAN
GERMANY
US
JAPAN
GERMANY
US
JAPAN
FRANCE
US
UNITED KINGDOM
JAPAN
US
UNITED KINGDOM
SWITZERLAND
US
JAPAN
GERMANY
4. Results
21

Top 3 innovative countries in Green
ICT technological domains (cont.)
Technological domain
Traffic control systems
Hall effect devices
Liquid crystal displays
Technologies for total factory control
Excitation or detection systems, e.g. using radiofrequency signals
Number of patents
50
44
89
36
24
25
17
295
252
115
92
13
173
53
48
Country
JAPAN
GERMANY
US
US
JAPAN
GERMANY
GERMANY
HUNGARY
UNITED KINGDOM
JAPAN
GERMANY
US
US
UNITED KINGDOM
SWITZERLAND
4. Results
EU
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Patterns of innovative activity in Green ICTs
 Growth of patents over time
 Different types of indices:
 Country concentration (HHI index)*
 Organization concentration (HHI index)*
 Entry of new patenting firms
 Technological pervasiveness: the extent to which domains spread across different IPC classes (Jaffe et al., 1993)*
 Knowledge source across technological classes-variety of knowledge (Trajetenberg et al., 2002)*
 Internal knowledge sources
 Academic sources of knowledge
* Using the method suggested by Hall (2002).
4. Results
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Growth: The average annual growth rate of the domain wrt the number of patents
H
ORG
: The concentration degree of organizations
ENTRY: share of firms patenting for the first time in domain i over the total number patenting
H
COUNTRY
: The concentration degree of countries in each domain
HTECH: the extent to which the domains spread across different technological classes.
SELFKNOW: Extent of self citations as a measure of knowledge cumulativeness
4. Results
PUBKNOW: Extent of public research organizations and universities, over all
H
CITTECH:
The concentration of technology classes among the cited patents
Variable
Number of patents
Number of technological classes
Share of ICT classes
Share of green classes
GROWTHi
ENTRYi
H
ORGi
H
COUNTRYi
H
TECHi
SELFKNOWi
PUBKNOWi
H
CITTECH
Obs
65
65
65
65
65
65
65
65
65
65
65
65
Mean Std.
Dev.
252.2
818.4
Min
435.0559 6
1850.121 110
Max
2849
11687
.5082421 .0411233 .4182306 .7400442
.4917579 .0411233 .2599558 .5817695
.3475701 .1669447 .0971514 .8044047
.0350057 .0378638 .0099174 .2595041
.0281049 .0299088 .0055423 .2123942
.2016453 .0537544 .1264003 .4248914
.0192141 .0151048 .0041719 .0966121
.0720965 .0339153 .0216138 .1959799
.0038859 .0095034 0 .0527638
.0396431 .0277021 .0014406 .1556497
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Cluster analysis: 3 different clusters of technological domains
Variables
Average nb of patents
Average nb of tech. classes
Share of ICT classes
Share of green classes
GROWTHi*
ENTRYi*
H
ORGi
*
H
COUNTRYi
*
CLUSTER 1
(25 domains)
GREEN
172.32
236.60
.503
.497
.030
.022
.190
CLUSTER 2
(11 domains)
EMERGING
128.09
207
.522
.478
.649
CLUSTER 3
(29 domains)
ESTABLISHED
368.14
731.04
.508
.493
.212
.023 .044
Little innovation by new entrants in a
Pervaniseness_
TECHi
.040
S ELF _ CITATION i i* .062
ACADEMIC _ KNOW i
* .009
Variery_
CITTECH*
.013
=> Room for radical changes?
*Indicates statistically significant differences across clusters.
.034
.080
.004
.024
4. Results
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Summary of Cluster Analysis Results
 Green domains:
 High dispersion of innovative activity across organizations, countries and technological classes.
 Public knowledge plays a marginal role.
 Degree of self-citations is low (low degree of knowledge cumulativeness & lack of specific firms’ competitive advantage).
 Established domains :
 Technological areas with a well-established innovative activity, which concentrates within few actors and countries.
 Very high technological pervasiveness: their potential fields of applications spread across different technological areas.
 Semiconductors and Electronic commerce are the most relevant domains in this cluster.
 Emerging domains: ( key findings )
 Prevalence of ICT-related technological classes and companies + variety of knowledge sources, with an important role of universities and public research centres.
 Innovative activity carried out by established firms through the acquisition of new competences outside their core area of technological expertise.
 Represent areas with a high level of opportunity for future development.
4. Results
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Conclusions about innovation dynamics in Green ICTs
5. Implications for future research
1.
Green ICTs cover 65 technological domains (different combinations of green &
ICT classes).
2.
Fastest growing domain = SSD using organic materials (Germany strongest EU country).
3.
France: strong in Secure electronic commerce & Hall effect devices (thanks to
CNRS).
4.
LEDs = promising Green ICT: potential for job creation in Europe? (cf. FP7 cycLED project: http://www.cyc-led.eu).
5.
Current set of technological classes in Green Inventory neglects important green
ICT domains that stem from the combination of existing green and ICT classes.
6.
3 main clusters of green ICT domains (Green, Emerging, Established) that differ substantially in the structure of their innovative activity.
7.
Further research: Green ICTs & relative/absolute decoupling? (magnitude of ecological benefits, job creation potential, ...).
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Grazia CECERE*
Nicoletta CORROCHER #
Cédric GOSSART*
Müge ÖZMAN*
# KITeS, Bocconi University, Milan
* Télécom Ecole de Management, Institut Mines-Télécom, Paris
ECOPATENTS project http://ecopatents.wp.mines-telecom.fr/

A review of the ecological impacts of ICTs evaluated with life cycle analyses
(in French, list of references –mostly in English- available from http://ecoinfo.cnrs.fr/article279.html
):
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Long term impacts of green ICTs:
Absolute decoupling
Relative decoupling
Absolute decoupling
ICTs
?
time
30

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