Worldwide Nanotechnology Development:
A Comparative Study of
USPTO, EPO, and JPO Patents
Xin Li
Yiling Lin
Hsinchun Chen
Dec 2006
Outline
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Background and Research Objectives
Research Design
Dataset
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Content Map Analysis
Citation Network Analysis
Conclusions
2
Introduction
Introduction
• Nanotechnology
–
–
–
–
A fundamental technology.
Critical for a nation’s technological competence.
Revolutionizes a wide range of application domains.
Its R&D status attracts various communities’ interest.
• Patent analysis has been widely used to assess a
field’s research and development status.
– (Huang et al., 2003a, Huang et al., 2004 ) studied the
longitudinal patent publications of different countries,
institutions, and technology fields in the nanotechnology
field.
– (Huang et al., 2005) studied the impact of National Science
Foundation’s funding on nanotechnology patents.
3
Introduction
Introduction
• Our previous research shows that:
– The US is the main contributor to the nanotechnology field.
– Japan and some European countries, such as Germany and the
United Kingdom, play an important role in worldwide
nanotechnology research.
• Many patent analysis studies are based on the patents filed in
the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database.
– Although the USPTO covers many of the patents in the
nanotechnology field, the European Patent Office (EPO) and
Japan Patent Office (EPO) also document large amounts of
nanotechnology patents.
• Little research/information available about
– The nanotechnology research status reflected by the patents in the
EPO database and JPO database.
– Comparisons of the characteristics of the patents filed in the three
repositories.
4
Introduction
Our Research
• Our research focuses on the nanotechnology field and is a
comparative study of nanotechnology patents filed in USPTO,
EPO, and JPO.
– The nanotechnology research in German, P. R. China, South
Korea, and France are also very active. Their patent offices
documented many nanotechnology patents (mostly in their own
language). But in this research we focus on the patents
documented in EPO and JPO, which have been translated into
English.
• We use basic bibliographic analysis, content map analysis, and
citation network analysis techniques.
5
Background and Research Objectives
Patent Analysis
• Patent publication status has been used in
evaluating technology development (Karki, 1997;
Oppenheim, 2000; Narin, 1994) in different domains:
– Nanotechnology field (Huang et al., 2003a; Huang et al.,
2004; Huang et al., 2005)
– Gastroenterology field (Lewison, 1998)
– Taiwan high-tech companies (Huang et al., 2003b)
6
Background and Research Objectives
Patent Offices in the World
• There are several governmental (e.g., USPTO) or
intergovernmental (e.g., EPO) patent offices which
control the granting of patents in the world.
• USPTO, EPO and JPO issue nearly 90 percent of
the world’s patents (Kowalski et al., 2003).
– In the nanotechnology field, the United States, the
European group, and Japan dominate the patent publication
in the USPTO filed patents (Huang et al., 2003a).
• The inventors may file their patents in different patent
offices.
7
Background and Research Objectives
Three Major Patent Offices
• USPTO Patents
– US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO): more than 6.5
million patents with 3,500 to 4,000 newly granted patents
each week.
• EPO Patents
– European Patent Office (EPO): more than 1.5 million
patents with more than 1,000 newly granted patents each
week.
– European Patent Office provides an online patent search
system, esp@cenet, which contains the structured patent
information from EPO, JPO, USPTO, and other countries’
patent offices.
• JPO Patents
– Japan Patent Office (JPO): more than 1.7 million patents
with 2,000 to 3,000 newly granted patents each week.
8
Background and Research Objectives
Patent Offices’ Effect
• The patent offices have different procedures and
policies which affect the patent publication process.
– USPTO patents have more citations per patent due to the
different rules governing citation practices (Bacchiocchi et
al., 2004).
• In the USA, the “duty of candor” rule requires applicants to
disclose all the prior related work of which they are aware.
• At the European Patent Office, there is no such rule. Most
EPO patent citations were added by the examiners.
– The USPTO has less rigorous patent applications standards
than the EPO (Quillen et al., 2002).
• The USPTO has a significantly higher grant rate than EPO and
JPO.
9
Background and Research Objectives
Patent Offices’ Effect (cont.)
• The “home advantage” effect can be another factor
that affects the composition of the patents in one
repository.
– Domestic applicants, proportionate to their innovative
activities, tend to file more patents with their home country
patent office than foreign applicants do (European
Commission, 1997).
– Both EPO and USPTO patents have the home advantage
effect (Criscuolo P, 2005).
– The patents in USPTO, EPO, and JPO databases have the
home advantage effect both in the whole dataset and in
“high-tech” areas (Ganguli, 1998).
10
Background and Research Objectives
Utilizing Different Patent Offices’ Repositories
• To obtain a comprehensive understanding of a
technology area’s development, it is necessary to
study the patents filed in different patent offices’
repositories.
11
Background and Research Objectives
Utilizing Different Patent Offices’ Repositories
• In some other domains, a few previous studies combine
different patent offices’ data for their research:
– Balconi et al. (2004a; 2004b) studied Italian professors’
contribution in the firms in science-based technological classes
using the patents filed in USPTO and EPO.
– Lukach et al. (2001) studied inter-firm and intra-firm knowledge
diffusion patterns using patents published in EPO and USPTO by
Belgian Companies.
• In the nanotechnology field, many previous studies use a single
patent repository.
– Huang et al. (2003a, 2004) assessed nanotechnology research
status from 1976 to 2003 using USPTO patents.
– Meyer (2001) assessed the interrelationships between science and
technology in the nanotechnology field using USPTO patents.
12
Background and Research Objectives
Research Gap
• Few studies employ multiple repositories to
reveal the nanotechnology field’s R&D status.
• Results of past patent analysis studies may
be biased by the characteristics of different
databases.
13
Background and Research Objectives
Research Objectives
• Assess the nanotechnology development
status represented by USPTO, EPO, and
JPO patents.
• Compare and contrast the differences in the
nanotechnology patents in the three
repositories.
14
Research Design
Research Design
We develope a framework to assess the R&D status of a a science and engineering
domain based on the patents in the three repositories: USPTO, EPO, and JPO.
Data acquisition
USPTO dataset
Collected by
keywords
Patent
USPTO
database
Research status analysis
Patent publication
Number of patents
Patent importance/
strength of a repository
Average number
of cites
Topic coverage
Content map
Knowledge diffusion
Citation Network
EPO+JPO patent
EPO dataset
Collected by
keywords
Patent
status
JPO
database
parsing
EPO
database
Patent status
checking
JPO dataset
15
Research Design
Research Design
• The framework contains three steps:
– Data acquisition
• Retrieve patents from the three repositories.
– Patent parsing
• Parse the free-text data to structured data.
– Research status analysis
• Analyze the patents at different analytical unit
levels, i.e., country (country group), assignee
institution, and technology field (represented
by third level IPC categories) .
16
Research Design
Data Acquisition
• Retrieve the patents from the three repositories
– A list of keywords can be used to search for patents related to a
domain from the three repositories.
– USPTO
• USPTO provides online full-text access for patents issued since 1976.
• The patents can be searched using almost all the data fields of a
patent.
– EPO
• esp@cenet provides online full-text access to EPO patents issued
since 1978.
• The patents can be searched based on title, abstract, and some of the
bibliographic data.
– JPO
• Patent Abstracts of Japan (PAJ) is the official patent database of JPO,
which contains the patents issued since 1976.
• The PAJ database is difficult to spider. But its patents and patent
applications can be searched from esp@cenet.
• Need to use the PAJ database to differentiate granted patents from
patent applications.
17
Research Design
Research Status Analysis
•
•
We assess a field’s research status using the following indicators.
Patent publication trend
–
–
–
–
•
Number of patents by country in each year
Number of patents by country group in each year
Number of patents by assignee institution in each year
Number of patents by technology field in each year
Patent impact
– Average number of cites by country
– Average number of cites by assignee institution
– Average number of cites by technology field
•
Topic coverage
– Content map analysis
•
Knowledge diffusion
– Country citation network analysis
– Institution citation network analysis
– Technology field network analysis
18
Research Design
Data Limitations
•
The three repositories have different data fields, which need to be considered
during the analysis.
–
–
–
There is no assignee country information in JPO patents. We can't perform the
"assignee country analysis" and "country group analysis" on the JPO patents.
There is no citation information in JPO patents. We can't perform the citation network
analysis on the JPO patents.
In previous studies we used US Patent Classifications to represent technology fields.
Since USPTO, EPO, and JPO all have International Patent Classification (IPC), in this
research we use IPC classifications to represent technology fields.
•
•
The United States Patent Classification has 462 first-level categories.
IPC has 120 level-2 classifications and 631 level-3 classifications. To be comparable to our
previous research, we use level-3 IPC in this study.
USPTO
EPO
JPO
Patent ID



Publication date



Inventor name



Assignee (applicant) institution name



Assignee (applicant) country
Patent classification code


N/A
IPC
IPC
IPC
USPC
EPC
EPC
Patent citation information


N/A
Title



Abstract



Claim



Description



19
Research Design
Analysis Performed
USPTO
Patent publication trend
Number of patents by country in each year
Number of patents by country group in each year
Number of patents by assignee institution in each year
Number of patents by technology field in each year
Patent impact
Average number of cites by country
Average number of cites by assignee institution
Average number of cites by technology field
Topic coverage
Content map analysis
Knowledge diffusion
Country citation network analysis
Assignee institution citation network analysis
Technology field network analysis
EPO JPO








No
No








No
No
No









No
No
No
20
Dataset
Data Collection
• Keyword list
– A nanotechnology-related keyword list provided by domain experts
(Huang et al., 2003; 2004).
• Patent search/retrieval
– In our previous research, we retrieved nanotechnology patents by
searching the nanotechnology-related keyword list in patent title,
abstract, and claims (“title-claims” search) and in all patent data fields
(“full-text” search) from USPTO database (Huang et al., 2003; 2004).
– Because of the limitation of the search function of esp@cenet, we
collected the nanotechnology patents in EPO and JPO by searching
the nanotechnology-related keyword list in patent title and abstract
(“title-abstract” search).
– To be comparable with the patents retrieved from EPO and JPO, we
collected the data using “title-abstract” search from USPTO database
in this research.
21
Dataset
Data: USPTO Patents
• Comparing with "full-text" search
and "title-claims" search, “titleabstract” search provides fewer
search results but with higher
accuracy.
• From “title-abstract” search:
– 5,363 unique patents were
collected.
– Submitted by 2,196 assignee
institutions, 8,405 inventors, and
46 countries.
atomic force microscope
atomic force microscopic
atomic force microscopy
atomic-force-microscope
atomic-force-microscopy
atomistic simulation
biomotor
molecular device
molecular electronics
molecular modeling
molecular motor
molecular sensor
molecular simulation
nano*
quantum computing
quantum dot*
quantum effect*
scanning tunneling microscope
scanning tunneling microscopic
scanning tunneling microscopy
scanning-tunneling-microscope
scanning-tunneling-microscopy
selfassembl*
self assembly
self assembled
self assembling
self-assembly
self-assembled
self-assembling
Total
Unique Total
USPTO(1976-2004)
TitleTitleFull-text
claims abstract
search
search search
2,309
241
375
53
2
2
1,679
68
103
6
0
0
3
0
0
5
0
0
6
1
0
164
6
13
284
3
3
1,787
26
37
88
3
0
31
7
0
43
2
2
72,762 12,220 4,497
66
19
25
609
117
185
563
36
58
1,097
145
205
21
1
0
809
28
50
24
0
0
1
1
0
2
23
4
121
1,802
192
1,682
170
297
111
877
158
108
1,625
173
158
1,587
277
102
807
147
22
90,813 14,539
5,962
78,609 13,463 5,363
Dataset
Data: USPTO Patents (cont.)
• Top 20 nanotechnology patent assignees (with average patent age)
and countries based on “title-abstract” search of patents published
from 1976 to 2004
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Assignee Institution
IBM
The Regents of the University of California
The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
Eastman Kodak Company
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Xerox Corporation
Micron Technology, Inc.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd.
L'Oreal
Texas Instruments, Incorporated
Motorola, Inc.
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
General Electric Company
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
Allied Signal Inc.
California Institute of Technology
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
Hitachi, Ltd.
Hyperion Catalysis International, Inc.
Country
United States
United States
United States
United States
United States
United States
United States
United States
Japan
France
United States
United States
United States
Japan
United States
Japan
United States
United States
Japan
Japan
Number of
Patents
171
123
82
72
59
56
55
53
45
44
41
38
35
31
30
28
27
27
27
25
Average
Patent Age
6.65
4.30
5.15
7.19
5.92
3.61
4.71
2.09
6.89
4.45
5.44
4.11
2.17
4.42
4.03
3.29
2.52
0.30
6.96
3.44
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Assignee Country
United States
Japan
Germany
France
Republic of Korea
Canada
China (Taiwan)
United Kingdom
Netherlands
Switzerland
Australia
Belgium
Israel
Italy
Ireland
Sweden
India
Spain
China
Singapore
23
Number of
Patents
3,450
517
204
156
131
104
71
60
54
41
34
24
21
20
20
18
14
12
9
8
Dataset
Data: EPO Patents
EPO(1978-2004)
• EPO nanotechnology patent
collected by “title-abstract” search
in esp@cenet.
– 2,328 EPO patents were collected.
– Submitted by 1,168 assignee
institutions, 5,400 inventors, and 43
countries.
atomic force microscope
atomic force microscopic
atomic force microscopy
atomic-force-microscope
atomic-force-microscopy
atomistic simulation
biomotor
molecular device
molecular electronics
molecular modeling
molecular motor
molecular sensor
molecular simulation
nano*
quantum computing
quantum dot*
quantum effect*
scanning tunneling microscope
scanning tunneling microscopic
scanning tunneling microscopy
scanning-tunneling-microscope
scanning-tunneling-microscopy
selfassembl*
self assembly
self assembled
self assembling
self-assembly
self-assembled
self-assembling
Total
Unique Total
69
2
21
0
0
0
0
4
3
2
3
2
1
2,024
4
49
16
47
0
8
0
0
0
33
31
48
0
0
0
24 2,367
2,328
Dataset
Data: EPO Patents (cont.)
• Top 20 nanotechnology patent assignees (with average patent age)
and countries based on “title-abstract” search of patents published
from 1978 to 2004
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Assignee Institution
L'Oreal
IBM
Rohm & Haas
Eastman Kodak Co
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd
Japan Science & Tech Corp
BASF AG
Matsushita Electric Ind Co Ltd
Allied Signal Inc
Lucent Technologies Inc
Japan Science & Tech Agency
Bayer AG
Univ California
Centre Nat Rech Scient
Commissariat Energie Atomique
Inst Neue Mat Gemein Gmbh
Henkel Kgaa
Hewlett Packard Co
Iljin Nanotech Co Ltd
Samsung Sdi Co Ltd
Number of Average
Patents Patent Age
France
50
5.16
United States
44
11.91
United States
41
3.41
United States
39
4.44
Republic of Korea
28
0.75
Japan
27
2.67
Germany
25
6.56
Japan
24
7.67
United States
21
4.33
United States
21
3.24
Japan
20
0.00
Germany
19
5.11
United States
19
4.89
France
18
4.44
France
18
3.06
Germany
18
5.72
Germany
17
1.41
United States
17
2.94
Republic of Korea
17
3.47
Republic of Korea
17
2.24
Country
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Assignee Country
United States
Germany
Japan
France
Republic of Korea
Switzerland
United Kingdom
Netherlands
Belgium
Italy
Canada
Ireland
Spain
Israel
Sweden
Australia
Austria
China
Finland
India
Number of
Patents
925
343
323
201
98
77
72
51
42
34
26
26
22
20
18
14
13
9
7
7
25
Dataset
Data: JPO Patents
JPO(1976-2004)
• JPO patent collection
– The patents collected by “title-abstract”
search in esp@cenet contain both JPO
patent applications and JPO registered
patents.
– The patents’ status are retrieved from the
JPO database to filter out patent
applications.
– 923 JPO registered patents were collected.
– Submitted by 348 assignee institutions and
1,729 inventors.
atomic force microscope
atomic force microscopic
atomic force microscopy
atomic-force-microscope
atomic-force-microscopy
atomistic simulation
biomotor
molecular device
molecular electronics
molecular modeling
molecular motor
molecular sensor
molecular simulation
nano*
quantum computing
quantum dot*
quantum effect*
scanning tunneling microscope
scanning tunneling microscopic
scanning tunneling microscopy
scanning-tunneling-microscope
scanning-tunneling-microscopy
selfassembl*
self assembly
self assembled
self assembling
self-assembly
self-assembled
self-assembling
Total
Unique Total
26
62
1
0
0
0
0
0
3
3
1
0
1
1
635
1
81
65
79
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
5
5
0
0
945
923
Dataset
Data: JPO Patents (cont.)
• Top 20 nanotechnology patent assignees based on “titleabstract” search of patents published from 1976 to 2004
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Assignee Institution
Nippon Electric Co
Japan Science & Tech Corp
Agency Ind Science Techn
Matsushita Electric Ind Co Ltd
Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co
Sony Corp
Canon Kk
Seiko Instr Inc
Nat Inst for Materials Science
Nat Inst of Adv Ind & Technol
Sharp Kk
Japan Res Dev Corp
Hitachi Ltd
IBM
Jeol Ltd
L'Oreal
Nippon Telegraph & Telephone
Hitachi Metals Ltd
Fujitsu Ltd
Daiken Kagaku Kogyo Kk
Number of Average
Patents Patent Age
Japan
103
7.17
Japan
48
2.29
United States
43
6.21
Japan
43
9.07
Japan
31
5.61
Japan
30
8.10
Japan
28
8.75
Japan
26
8.35
United States
25
1.00
Japan
24
1.25
Japan
24
4.79
Japan
22
9.00
Japan
21
8.19
United States
21
8.05
Japan
21
9.19
France
20
6.00
Japan
19
7.32
Japan
13
7.54
Japan
12
8.75
Japan
11
3.36
Country
27
Dataset
Data: USPTO, EPO, and JPO Patents
• The numbers of nanotechnology patents published in USPTO, EPO and JPO by year (log
scale)
Nanotechnology Patents
Nanotechnology Patents (1976-2004)
1000
USPTO
EPO
JPO
Number of Patents
100
10
Year
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
1985
1984
1983
1982
1981
1980
1979
1978
1977
1976
1
Year
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
USPTO
9
18
23
11
15
25
25
24
25
33
27
46
39
65
57
85
121
123
128
160
205
238
297
367
422
524
582
739
930
EPO
0
0
0
0
3
3
5
6
7
7
9
10
23
24
47
35
28
42
67
73
71
93
112
125
141
235
308
364
478
JPO
0
0
0
1
1
0
1
1
4
1
8
0
8
6
13
29
46
45
70
65
66
51
54
78
86
78
83
78
50
•The numbers of nanotechnology patents in USPTO and EPO roughly show a pattern of straight line,
indicating exponential increases of the nanotechnology patents.
•After 1993, the number of nanotechnology patents published in JPO becomes stable.
28
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
I. Basic Analysis- USPTO Patents by Country
•
Top 20 nanotechnology patent assignee countries in USPTO (“title-abstract” search)
and their patents by year, 1976-2004 (log scale)
Top 20 Assignee Countries by Year
United States
Japan
1000
Germany
France
Republic of Korea
Canada
China (Taiwan)
100
United Kingdom
Netherlands
Switzerland
Australia
Belgium
10
Israel
Ireland
Italy
Sweden
• The United States
published more
nanotechnology patents
than other countries in
USPTO. The US
nanotechnology patents
showed an exponential
growth trend.
• Between 1994 and 2002,
Japan nanotechnology
patents showed a slower
increasing speed.
• Germany patents in
USPTO were continuously
increasing.
India
1
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Number of Patents
• Many countries had an
increasing trend of
nanotechnology patent
publication
Year
Spain
China
Singapore
• After 2002, the number of
nanotechnology patents
published by France
experienced a29decrease.
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- EPO Patents by Country
•
Top 20 nanotechnology patent assignee countries in EPO (“title-abstract” search)
and their patents by year, 1978-2004 (log scale)
Top 20 Assignee Countries by Year
1000
United States
Germany
Japan
France
Republic of Korea
United Kingdom
100
Netherlands
Belgium
Italy
• The Japan patents kept
at the same level between
1989 and 2000. After
2000, there was a rapid
growth of Japan patents.
Canada
Ireland
10
Spain
Israel
Sweden
Australia
Austria
1
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Number of Patents
Switzerland
• The United States filed
more nanotechnology
patents than other
countries. The US
nanotechnology patents
showed an exponential
increase trend.
Year
•Germany patents
remained at the same
level after 2000.
•France patents were
consistently increasing in
EPO.
China
Finland
India
30
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- USPTO Patents by Country Group
•
Assignee country group analysis by year, 1976-2004 (“title-abstract” search) (log scale)
USPTO Country Groups (1976-2004)
1000
United States
European Group
Japan
Number of Patents
Others
100
10
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
1
Year
•
•
Year
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
United
States
6
12
15
8
10
20
16
14
18
21
17
32
27
47
36
53
77
82
76
102
135
157
196
237
262
348
358
478
590
European
Group
1
1
1
1
1
3
4
5
4
5
2
4
4
7
5
10
9
6
11
11
17
26
40
45
59
63
83
73
83
Japan
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
1
3
6
9
10
16
21
31
24
25
31
30
34
38
37
43
66
89
Others
1
2
2
1
0
1
0
2
0
0
1
0
2
2
3
2
6
4
4
14
14
8
19
28
35
43
71
92
120
The United States filed more patents than the other three groups.
The European Group, Japan, and the Others group had similar numbers of nanotechnology patents in
31
each year.
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- EPO Patents by Country Group
•
Assignee country group analysis by year, 1978-2004 (“title-abstract” search) (log scale)
EPO Country Groups (1978-2004)
1000
United States
European Group
Japan
Number of Patents
Others
100
10
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
1
Year
•
•
Year
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
United
States
0
0
2
1
2
4
4
6
6
6
12
4
18
16
8
15
30
28
28
40
37
49
52
95
122
150
190
European
Group
0
0
1
1
3
2
1
1
2
4
8
12
13
8
9
14
29
27
22
45
46
39
56
85
118
123
154
Japan
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
0
1
4
14
9
10
12
7
14
16
7
16
28
14
20
35
46
68
Others
0
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
1
1
3
2
1
1
2
5
6
3
13
10
19
36
37
54
75
The numbers of patents filed by the United States and European group countries were at the same level.
The numbers of patents filed by Japan and Other countries were at the same level after 1998. These two
32
groups’ patents are fewer than the patents filed by the other two country groups.
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Findings - Patents by Country and Country Group
• USPTO and EPO assignee country analysis:
– Many of the top 20 assignee countries had an increasing trend of
nanotechnology patent publication.
– The United States filed more nanotechnology patents than other
countries. Its patents showed an exponential increasing trend.
– Some countries showed different publication trends in the two
repositories.
• USPTO and EPO assignee country group analysis:
– In USPTO, the United Sates published more patents than the other
three country groups.
– In EPO, the United Sates published a similar number of patents to
European group countries.
– The United States filed much more nanotechnology patents in
USPTO than in EPO.
– European group countries filed more patents in EPO than in
USPTO.
33
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- USPTO Patents by Assignee
•
Top 10 nanotechnology patent assignee institutions in USPTO (“title-abstract” search)
and their patents by year, 1976-2004
IBM
Top 10 USPTO Assignee Institutions
30
The Regents of the
University of California
The United States of
America as represented by
the Secretary of the Navy
Eastman Kodak Company
20
Minnesota Mining and
Manufacturing Company
15
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
10
Xerox Corporation
5
Micron Technology, Inc.
0
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Number of Patents
25
Year
Matsushita Electric
Industrial Co. Ltd.
•Most of the top assignees
were United States
companies/ institutions.
• Some institutions, such as
IBM and “Micron Technology,
Inc” showed a decrease in
recent years’ nanotechnology
patent publication.
•Most institutions started
publishing nanotechnology
patents in 1990s, while IBM,
“The United States of
America as represented by
the Secretary of the Navy,”
“Eastman Kodak Company,”
and “Minnesota Mining and
Manufacturing Company”
started in 1970s.
L'Oreal
34
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- EPO Patents by Assignee
•
Top 10 nanotechnology patent assignee institutions in EPO (“title-abstract” search)
and their patents by year, 1978-2004
Top 10 EPO Assignee Institutions
18
L'Oreal
IBM
16
Rohm & Haas
14
Samsung Electronics
Co Ltd
10
Japan Science &
Tech Corp
8
BASF AG
6
4
Matsushita Electric
Ind Co Ltd
2
Allied Signal Inc
0
Lucent Technologies
Inc
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Number of Patents
Eastman Kodak Co
12
Year
• The top 10 assignees
consisted of
companies/institutions from
the United States, Koreas,
Japan, etc.
• “Samsung Electronics Co
Ltd” had a steady increase
in patent publication after
2001
• Some institutions, such as
“Eastman Kodak Co” and
“Japan Science & Tech
Corp” experienced a
decrease in recent years.
35
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- JPO Patents by Assignee
•
Top 10 nanotechnology patent assignee institutions in JPO (“title-abstract” search)
and their patents by year, 1976-2004
Top 10 JPO Assignee Institutions
Nippon Electric Co
20
Japan Science & Tech
Corp
18
Agency Ind Science
Techn
16
Matsushita Electric Ind
Co Ltd
12
Tokyo Shibaura
Electric Co
10
Sony Corp
8
6
Canon Kk
4
Seiko Instr Inc
• Many of assignee
institutions in JPO
experienced a decrease in
recent years, such as
“Nippon Electric Co,”
“Agency Ind Science
Techn,” “Tokyo Shibaura
Electric Co,” etc.
• “Japan Science & Tech
Corp” and “Nat Inst for
Materials Science”
continued to have active
patent publications in
recent years.
2
0
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Number of Patents
14
• Most of the top assignees
were Japanese companies/
institutions.
Year
Nat Inst for Materials
Science
Nat Inst of Adv Ind &
Technol
36
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Findings - Patents by Assignee
• “Home advantage” effect:
– In the three patent databases, many of the top
nanotechnology patent assignee institutions are
companies that belong to the same region as the
patent office.
37
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields
•
Top 10 technology fields according to the number of patents published
between 1976 and 2004 based on US Class (“title-abstract” search)
USPC Class
Class Name
Number of Patents
428
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
621
257
Active solid-state devices (e.g., transistors, solid-state diodes)
518
427
Coating processes
506
438
Semiconductor device manufacturing: process
503
250
Radiant energy
465
424
Drug, bio-affecting and body treating compositions
434
423
Chemistry of inorganic compounds
379
435
Chemistry: molecular biology and microbiology
289
524
Synthetic resins or natural rubbers -- part of the class 520 series
243
73
Measuring and testing
224
38
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields
•
Top 10 US classification technology fields by year (1976-2004) (“titleabstract” search)
• Most of the top 10
technology fields had an
increasing trend of patent
publication.
Top 10 USPTO Technology Fields (USPC)
140
120
428
257
438
427
80
250
424
60
423
435
40
524
• Comparing with other
technology fields, the number
of patents in technology field
“250: Radiant energy” did not
change much after 1989.
•Technology field “257:Active
solid-state devices”
experienced a rapid growth
since 1999.
514
20
0
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Number of Patents
100
Year
39
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields
•
Top 10 technology fields according to the number of patents published
between 1976 and 2004 based on IPC (“title-abstract” search)
IPC Class
Class Name
Number of Patents
Semiconductor devices; electric solid state devices not
H01L
748
otherwise provided for
431
Preparations for medical, dental, or toilet purposes
A61K
364
Electric discharge tubes or discharge lamps
H01J
Layered products, i.e. products built-up of strata of flat or
B32B
352
non-flat, e.g. cellular or honeycomb
Investigating or analysing materials by determining their
G01N
344
chemical or physical properties
211
Performing operations transporting
B05D
182
Use of inorganic or non-macromolecular organic
C08K
Measuring length, thickness, or similar linear dimensions
G01B
measuring angles measuring areas measuring irregularities
169
of surfaces or contours
147
Optical elements, systems, or apparatus
G02B
B01D
Separation
139
•
Technology field “H01L” had the most nanotechnology patents published,
almost double the amount of the second largest technology field “A61K.”
40
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields
•
Top 10 IPC technology fields by year (1976-2004) (“title-abstract”
search)
• Most of the top 10
technology fields had an
increasing trend of patent
publication.
Top 10 USPTO Technology Fields(IPC)
180
160
H01L
A61K
H01J
120
B32B
G01N
100
B05D
80
C08K
G01B
60
G02B
40
B01D
20
0
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Number of Patents
140
Year
• The technology fields
“H01L: Semiconductor
devices; electric solid state
devices” experienced much
faster growth than other
technology fields.
• The patents published in
technology field “A61K:
Preparations for medical,
dental, or toilet purposes”
each year became stable
after 1996.
• Some of the technology
fields in the two systems
have similar meanings and
similar development trends,
for example, H01L in IPC
and 438 in USPC.
41
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- EPO Technology Fields
•
Top 10 technology fields according to the number of patents published
between 1978 and 2004 (“title-abstract” search)
IPC Class
A61K
H01L
G01N
C01B
C08K
B01J
H01J
C08L
G01B
B01D
Class Name
Preparations for medical, dental, or toilet purposes
Semiconductor devices; electric solid state devices not
otherwise provided for
Investigating or analysing materials by determining their
chemical or physical properties
Non-metallic elements; compounds thereof
Use of inorganic or non-macromolecular organic substances
as compounding ingredients
Chemical or physical processes, e.g. catalysis, colloid
chemistry; their relevant apparatus
Electric discharge tubes or discharge lamps
Compositions of macromolecular compounds
Measuring length, thickness, or similar linear dimensions;
measuring angles; measuring areas; measuring irregularities
of surfaces or contours
Separation
Number of Patents
347
271
226
222
152
141
119
90
87
81
42
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- EPO Technology Fields
•
Top 10 technology fields by year (1978-2004) (“title-abstract” search)
• Most of the top 10 technology
fields had an increasing trend of
patent publication.
Top 10 EPO Technology Fields (IPC)
70
60
A61K
G01N
C01B
40
C08K
B01J
30
H01J
C08L
20
G01B
B01D
10
0
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Number of Patents
H01L
50
• After 2000, technology fields
“A61K: Preparations for medical,
dental, or toilet purposes,” “H01L:
Semiconductor devices; electric
solid state devices,” and “C01B:
Non-metallic elements;
compounds thereof" showed
faster growth than the other
technology fields.
• The patent publication of
technology field “G01B: Measuring
length, thickness, or similar linear
dimensions; measuring angles;
measuring areas; measuring
irregularities of surfaces or
contours” was quite consistent in
recent years, which is different
from the other technology fields.
Year
43
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- JPO Technology Fields
•
Top 10 technology fields according to the number of patents published
between 1976 and 2004 (“title-abstract” search)
IPC Class
H01L
C01B
H01J
G01B
G01N
B01J
H01S
B82B
A61K
C23C
Class Name
Number of Patents
Semiconductor devices; electric solid state devices not otherwise provided for
210
Non-metallic elements compounds thereof
153
Electric discharge tubes or discharge lamps
135
Measuring length, thickness, or similar linear dimensions; measuring angles;
121
measuring areas; measuring irregularities of surfaces or contours
Investigating or analysing materials by determining their chemical or physical
120
properties
Electric discharge tubes or discharge lamps
79
Devices using stimulated emission
56
Nano-structures manufacture or treatment thereof
51
Preparations for medical, dental, or toilet purposes
45
Coating metallic material coating material with metallic material surface
45
treatment of metallic material by diffusion into the surface, by chemical
conversion or substitution coating by vacuum evaporation, by sputtering, by ion
implantation or by chemical vapour deposition, in general
44
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- JPO Technology Fields
•
Top 10 technology fields by year (1976-2004) (“title-abstract” search)
• Many of the technology
fields experienced a
decrease in recent years.
Top 10 JPO Technology Fields (IPC)
30
25
H01L
20
H01J
G01B
G01N
15
B01J
H01S
10
B82B
A61K
C23C
5
0
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Number of Patents
C01B
•Technology field “C01B:
Non-metallic elements;
compounds thereof” had
a steady growth in patent
publication.
Year
45
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Summary: USPTO/EPTO/JPO Technology Fields
USPTO
EPO
JPO
Rank IPC Class Number of Patents IPC Class Number of Patents IPC Class Number of Patents
2
A61K
431
A61K
347
A61K
45
10
B01D
139
B01D
81
B01J
79
6
B05D
211
B01J
141
B82B
51
4
B32B
352
C01B
222
C01B
153
7
C08K
182
C08K
152
C23C
45
8
G01B
169
C08L
90
G01B
121
5
G01N
344
G01B
87
G01N
120
9
G02B
147
G01N
226
H01J
135
3
H01J
364
H01J
119
H01L
210
1
H01L
H01L
271
H01S
56
748
•
•
The three repositories have several top technology fields in common, e.g.,
“A61K,” “H01L,” “H01J,” “G01B,” and “G01N.”
Although the top 10 technology fields are very similar in the three repositories,
their rankings (and numbers of patents published) are significant different.
46
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Findings - Technology Fields
•
•
•
•
•
•
In USPTO, technology field H01L had many more nanotechnology
patents than other fields. In EPO and JPO there was no dominate
technology field among the top 10 technology fields.
USPTO, EPO and JPO have many top technology fields in common.
Most of the JPO top technology fields experienced a decrease in
recent years, which was different from the technology fields in USPTO
and EPO.
In USPTO patents, the top technology fields were mainly related to
biomedical research, material research and semiconductor research.
In EPO patents, the top technology fields were mainly related to
biomedical research, chemistry research, material research, and
semiconductors research.
In JPO patents, the top technology fields were mainly related to
biomedical research and material research and semiconductor
research.
47
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- Average Number of Cites by Country
•
USPTO top 10 countries with more than
10 patents based on the average number
of cites measure (1976-2004) (“titleabstract” search)
Country Name
Australia
Japan
Switzerland
United States
Ireland
Canada
France
China (Taiwan)
Germany
Israel
Number of Patents Average Number of Cites
34
517
41
3,450
20
104
156
71
204
21
2.09
1.90
1.90
1.81
1.55
1.30
1.10
0.89
0.89
0.86
•
EPO top 10 countries with more than 10
patents based on the average number of
cites measure (1978-2004) (“titleabstract” search)
Country Name Number of Patents Average Number of Cites
Japan
Spain
Belgium
France
United States
Republic of Korea
United Kingdom
Switzerland
Israel
Netherlands
326
22
42
201
929
98
72
77
20
51
0.22
0.18
0.17
0.15
0.12
0.11
0.11
0.10
0.10
0.10
48
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- Average Number of Cites by Assignee Institution
•
USPTO top 10 assignee institutions with more than 10 patents based on the average
number of cites measure (1976-2004) (“title-abstract” search)
Assignee Institution
Number of Patents
Digital Instruments, Inc.
AMCOL International Corporation
Agere Systems Guardian Corp.
Olympus Optical Co., Ltd.
Hyperion Catalysis International, Inc.
The Penn State Research Foundation
Allied Signal Inc.
The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
President & Fellows of Harvard College
Nano Systems L.L.C.
•
24
22
11
15
25
18
28
21
25
10
Average Number of Cites
9.42
9.05
9.00
7.47
6.84
5.39
5.21
5.14
5.12
4.40
EPO top 10 assignee institutions with more than 10 patents based on the average
number of cites measure (1978-2004) (“title-abstract” search)
Assignee Institution
Canon Kk
Lucent Technologies Inc
IBM
Hitachi Europ Ltd
Hitachi Ltd
L'Oreal
Matsushita Electric Ind Co Ltd
Rohm & Haas
Lee Cheol Jin
Max Planck Gesellschaft
Number of Patents
12
21
44
15
15
50
24
41
11
10
Average Number of Cites
0.92
0.52
0.50
0.47
0.40
0.38
0.38
0.37
0.36
0.30
49
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Basic Analysis- Average Number of Cites by Technology Field
•
•
USPTO top 10
technology fields
with more than 10
patents based on
the average
number of cites
measure (19762004) (“titleabstract” search)
IPC
Class Name
Class
D01F Chemical features in the manufacture of artificial filaments, threads, fibres, bristles, or ribbons;
apparatus specially adapted for the manufacture of carbon filaments
B29B Preparation or pretreatment of the material to be shaped; making granules or preforms;
recovery of plastics or other constituents of waste material containing plastics
H01J Electric discharge tubes or discharge lamps
C01B Non-metallic elements compounds thereof
G01B Measuring length, thickness, or similar linear dimensions measuring angles measuring areas
measuring irregularities of surfaces or contours
C25D Processes for the electrolytic or electrophoretic production of coatings; electroforming
G01T Measurement of nuclear or x-radiation
C08J Working-up general processes of compounding after- treatment not covered by subclasses
C08K Use of inorganic or non-macromolecular organic
B44C Producing decorative effects; mosaics; tarsia work; paperhanging
Number of
Patents
80
Average Number
of Cites
4.31
12
3.58
364
136
169
3.40
3.39
3.12
30
12
71
182
35
3.03
3.00
2.79
2.76
2.57
EPO top 10
technology fields
with more than
10 patents based
on the average
number of cites
measure (19782004) (“titleabstract” search)
IPC
Class Name
Class
G01B Measuring length, thickness, or similar linear dimensions measuring angles measuring
areas measuring irregularities of surfaces or contours
H01J Electric discharge tubes or discharge lamps
G03C Photography cinematography analogous techniques using waves other than optical waves
electrography holography
G01R Measuring electric variables measuring magnetic variables
B01F Mixing, e.g. dissolving, emulsifying, dispersing
C09D Coating compositions, e.g. paints, varnishes, lacquers filling pastes chemical paint or ink
removers inks correcting fluids woodstains pastes or solids for colouring or printing use of
C09B Organic dyes or closely-related compounds for producing dyes; mordants; lakes
H01F Magnets inductances transformers selection of materials for their magnetic properties
G11B Information storage based on relative movement between record carrier and transducer
A61K Preparations for medical, dental, or toilet purposes
Number of Average Number
Patents
of Cites
87
0.39
119
19
0.37
0.32
17
17
73
0.29
0.24
0.23
13
51
57
348
0.23
0.20
0.18
0.17
50
Basic Bibliographic Analysis
Findings - Average Number of Cites
•
In general, USPTO countries, assignees, and technology fields had a
higher average number of cites than those in EPO.
– USPTO requires inventors to cited previous works in their patents.
– EPO patent citations were mostly assigned by the examiners.
•
Although five out of the ten highly cited countries (The United Sates,
Japan, Switzerland, France, and Israel) are the same in USPTO and
EPO, their rankings are significantly different.
– The United States and Japan published most of the patents with very high
average number of cites in both repositories.
•
The difference between USPTO and EPO highly cited technology
fields shows the different focuses and strengths of the nanotechnology
patents in the two repositories. However, technology fields “H01J” and
“G01B” appear in both top 10 lists with large numbers of patents and
high average number of cites.
51
Content Map Analysis
II. Content Map Analysis
Documents
Keyword Extraction
Arizona Noun
Phraser
•
•
•
Topic Similarity
Topics
Visualization
Topic Relation Analysis
SOM Algorithm
Technology topics ,represented by keywords in the documents, are extracted
using a Natural Language Processing tool, the Arizona Noun Phraser, which
can identify the key noun phrases based primarily on the linguistic patterns of
free texts.
The technology topics map are organized by the multi-level self-organization
map algorithm (Chen et al., 1996; Ong et al., 2005) developed by the Arizona
Artificial Intelligence Lab. This algorithm calculates the topic similarities
according to the co-occurrence patterns of key phrases in document titles and
abstracts.
The topics are positioned geographically on a graph according to their similarity
by the topic map interface.
52
Content Map Analysis
Topic Map Interface
• Two components
– A folder tree
– A hierarchical content map
• Each node in the tree, corresponding to a
region in the map, is a topic (keyword)
identified from the document.
• Conceptually closer technology topics were
positioned closer geographically.
• Numbers of documents that were assigned
to the different levels of topics are presented
after the topic labels. The sizes of the topic
regions also generally correspond to the
number of documents assigned to the topics.
53
Content Map Analysis
Content Map Analysis (USPTO)
• USPTO Content Map (1976-1989) (“title-abstract” search)
54
Content Map Analysis
Content Map Analysis (USPTO)
4.18
5.39
6.03
6.51
6.93
7.33
7.75
8.23
8.86
9.32
10.07
NEW
REGION
•USPTO Content Map (1990-1999) (“title-abstract”
search)
-0.80
0.41 1.05
1.53
1.95 2.35
2.77
3.25
3.88
4.34
5.09
NEW
REGION
•USPTO Content Map (2000-2004) (“title-abstract”
55
search)
Content Map Analysis
Findings –Content Map (USPTO)
•
From 1976 to 1989, the major research topics of USPTO
nanotechnology patents included: “carbon atoms,” “optical fibers,” and
“thin films.”
•
From 1990 to 1999, several new research topics appeared from 1990
to 1999, including: “aqueous solutions,” “composite materials,” “laser
beams,” “nucleic acids,” “optical waveguide,” “organic colvents,”
“reverse osmosis,” “self-assembled monolayer,” “semiconductor
substrate,” “silicon carbide,” and “substrate surfaces.”
•
From 2000 to 2004, the numbers of patents related to several topics
had increased significantly, such as “aqueous solutions,” “composite
materials,” “carbon nanotubes,” “nucleic acids,” “self-assembled
monolayer,” and “thin films.” Some new topics also became major
research topics in this time period, such as “atomic force microscope,”
“clay materials,” “dielectric layers,” “nanocomposite materials,”
“naphtha stream,” “polymeric materials,” and “semiconductor devices.”
56
Content Map Analysis
Content Map Analysis (EPO)
-1.88
•EPO Content Map (1990-1999) (“title-abstract” search)
-0.67 -0.04 0.44 0.86
1.26
1.68
2.16
2.80
3.26
4.01
NEW
REGION
•EPO Content Map (2000-2004) “title-abstract” search
57
Content Map Analysis
Findings –Content Map (EPO)
• From 1978 to 1989, EPO had only 97 nanotechnology patents,
which are not enough to generate a meaningful content map.
• From 1990 to 1999, EPO nanotechnology patents covered the
topics “aqueous solutions,” “atomic force,” “carbon nanotubes,”
“magnetic core,” “metal oxides,” and “thin films.”
• From 2000 to 2004, the research topics “aqueous solutions,”
“metal oxides,” and “thin films” had significant increase. The
new topics included: “gate electrode,” “low dielectric,”
“nanocomposite materials,” “nanoparticulate compositions,” and
“ploymer compositions.”
58
Content Map Analysis
Content Map Analysis (JPO)
-3.33 -2.12 -1.48 -1.00 -0.58 -0.18
0.24
0.72
1.35
1.82
2.56
NEW
REGION
•JPO Content Map (1990-1999) (“title-abstract” search) •JPO Content Map (1999-2004) (“title-abstract” search)
59
Content Map Analysis
Findings –Content Map (JPO)
• From 1978 to 1989, JPO had only 31 nanotechnology patents,
which are not enough to generate a meaningful content map.
• From 1990 to 1999, the major topics of JPO nanotechnology
patents were “atomic force microscope,” “laser beams,” “silicon
substrate,” and “thin films.”
• From 2000 to 2004, the topics “atomic force microscope,” and
“thin films” were still major research topics. The new research
topics include “Carbon nanofibers,” “gate electrodes,” “heat
treatment,” and “quantum dots.”
60
Content Map Analysis
Findings –Content Map
• USPTO patents had broader topic coverage than EPO and
JPO.
• Many of the EPO and JPO topics were related to research
tools/methods (e.g., “atomic force microscope,” “thin films,” and
“scanning tunneling microscope”) and physics research (e.g.,
“carbon nanotubes,” “carbon nanofibers,” “magnetic core,”
“metal oxides,” and “transition metal”)
• Many USPTO topics were related to physics research (e.g.,
“carbon nanotubes,” “laser beams,” “optical waveguide,” and
“self-assembled monolayer”), biomedical research (e.g.,
“nucleic acids,” “organic colvents,” “pharmaceutical
compositions,” and “reverse osmosis”), and electronic research
(e.g., “dielectric layers,” “semiconductor devices” and
“semiconductor substrate”).
61
Citation Network Analysis
III. Citation Network Analysis
•
•
•
•
•
In this research, the patent citation networks are studied at three
abstract analytical unit levels: countries, institutions, and technology
fields.
In this research, the top 100 links of each network (according to the
number of citations between the nodes) are used to create the core
networks.
These citation networks are visualized using an open source graph
drawing software, Graphviz, provided by AT&T Labs (Gansner and
North, 2000) (available at:
http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/).
In the citation networks, direction of the links represents the direction
of the citations. For example, a link from “Country A” to “Country B”
means that country A’s patents cited country B’s patents and the
number beside the link is the total number of these citations.
It allows us to identify the salient knowledge diffusion patterns among
the analytical units.
62
Citation Network Analysis
Citation Network Analysis- USPTO Countries
63
Citation Network Analysis
Citation Network Analysis- EPO Countries
64
Citation Network Analysis
Findings – Country Citation Network
• In the USPTO dataset, the United States is the most significant
citation center on the network. Japan, Republic of Korea, the
United Kingdom, China (Taiwan) and Germany are the
secondary citation centers and constructed a cluster with close
citations.
• In the EPO dataset, the United States, France, Japan,
Germany, and the United Kingdom are large citation centers
and construct a citation cluster on the network.
• In both repositories, the countries have close citation
relationships. In EPO most assignee countries have more than
one citing/cited country. In USPTO several countries only have
citation relationship with the United States. Many of the
countries that only had citations with the United States were
relatively new in the nanotechnology domain.
65
Citation Network Analysis
Citation Network Analysis- USPTO Institutions
66
Citation Network Analysis
Citation Network Analysis- EPO Institutions
67
Citation Network Analysis
Findings – Institution Citation Network
• Both institution citation networks have many disconnected
components.
• In USPTO, “IBM,” “Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” “The
Regents of the University of California,” and “Molecular Imaging
Corporation” are the major companies/institutions in the largest
citation cluster.
• In EPO, “IBM,” “Hitachi Europ Ltd,” “Seiko Instr Inc,”
“Matsushita Electric Ind Co Ltd,” etc. are the major citation
centers in the first citation cluster. “Lucent Technologies Inc”,
“Iljin Nanotech Co Ltd”, “Ise Electronics Corp,” etc. construct the
other a large citation cluster.
68
Citation Network Analysis
Citation Network Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields (US class)
69
Citation Network Analysis
Citation Network Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields (IPC)
70
Citation Network Analysis
Citation Network Analysis- EPO Technology Fields
71
Citation Network Analysis
Findings – Technology Field Citation Network
•
In all three technology field citation networks, the technology fields
have close citation relationships.
•
In the USPTO technology field citation network represented by USPC,
the technology fields that are most often citing and being cited by other
fields were “435 Chemistry: molecular biology and microbiology,” “428
Stock material or miscellaneous articles,” and “427 Coating
processes.”
•
In USPTO, the large citation centers of technology fields represented
by IPC include “H01L: Semiconductor devices; electric solid state
devices not otherwise provided for,” “G01N: Investigating or analysing
materials by determining their chemical or physical properties,” “B32B:
Layered products, i.e. products built-up of strata of flat or non-flat, e.g.
cellular or honeycomb, form,” and “H01J: Electric discharge tubes or
discharge lamps.”
72
Citation Network Analysis
Findings – Technology Field Citation Network (cont.)
• In EPO, technology fields “H01J: Electric discharge tubes or
discharge lamps,” “C08K: Use of inorganic or nonmacromolecular organic substances as compounding
ingredients,” “C09D: Coating compositions, e.g. paints,
varnishes, lacquers; filling pastes; chemical paint or ink
removers; inks; correcting fluids; woodstains; pastes or solids
for colouring or printing; use of materials therefor,” and “C01B:
Non-metallic elements; compounds thereof” are major citation
centers in the technology field citation network.
• In USPTO technology field citation network, a major citation
center usually has citation relationships with several smaller
citation centers. On the other hand, in EPO, most citation
relations are between the major citation centers.
73
Conclusions
Conclusions
• The nanotechnology patents issued by USPTO and EPO
experienced an exponential growth in the past 30 years. But the
nanotechnology patent issued by JPO yearly became stable
after 1993.
• In USPTO and EPO, the high productivity assignee countries
and their rankings are very similar to each other. The United
States filed the most nanotechnology patents in both
repositories.
• The patent published by the four country groups all had an
increasing trend in both USPTO and EPO.
– The United States had much more nanotechnology patents than
the other three groups in USPTO.
– European group countries had similar number of patents as the
Untied States in EPO.
74
Conclusions
Conclusions
•
The top assignee institutions are quite different in USPTO, EPO, and
JPO. However, IBM and “L’Oreal” are high productivity assignee
institutions in all three repositories.
•
Most of the top assignee institutions in USPTO and JPO are United
States institutions and Japan institutions, respectively.
•
From the content map analysis, USPTO patents cover more topic
areas than EPO and JPO.
– Many of the EPO and JPO topics were related to research tools/methods
and physics research.
– Many of the USPTO topics were related to physics research, biomedical
research, and electronic research.
•
Both USPTO and EPO assignee country citation networks have close
citation relationships.
•
The USPTO technology field citation network shows a clear pattern of
knowledge diffusion from the major citation centers to the smaller
citation centers. The EPO technology field citation network shows a
clear pattern of knowledge exchange between the major citation
75
centers.
Future Directions
• Study the inter-repository citation relationships of the three
repositories.
– At the repository level
– At the technology field level
• Study the collaboration of the inventors in the three repositories.
– At the country level
– At the assignee level
• Extend our research framework to include the more patent
offices’ documents, such as Germany, P. R. China, South
Korea, and France.
76
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