Deciphering innovation: An exploration of USPTO patents granted to Iranian inventors

Since nearly a decade ago, Iranian policy circles have declared innovation and development of science-based industries as a priority area. This paper utilizes the emerging Iranian patent stock in the USPTO to ascertain progress on this front. Results indicate that there are policy traces in the emerging patent portfolio as proxied by sponsorship statements in 28% of all patents. However, there is little evidence of technological specialization. Breaking down the portfolio into foreign-assigned, Iranian-assigned, unassigned and Iranian-sponsored patents, indicates that foreign-assigned, followed by Iranian-assigned patents are of higher quality and potential value. Nearly half of the patents are unassigned and 40% are assigned to foreign entities. Lack of ownership assignment can be a hurdle to effective exploitation, defense and maintenance of patents. The analysis is concluded by relevant policy lessons.     

A quantitative investigation of the technological innovation in large construction companies

The construction industry is considered as backwards and lack of innovation. The main driving power of technological innovation in the construction industry is large construction companies. However, the driving process of technological innovation in them has not been fully investigated in previous studies. This study constructs a quantitative model to explore the technological innovation driving process of large construction companies considering the key influencing factors for technological innovation. The sample data are the 57 large construction companies selected from the world's largest construction market – China. The results show significant positive correlation between innovation input and innovation output, and between innovation output and performance. The operational capacity of the companies is positively correlated with innovation input, whilst the capital structure is negatively correlated with innovation input. The technical employees have a positive impact on the performance. The underlying reasons are discussed and suggestions are given for the construction industry to improve the technological innovation capacity of construction companies. This research contributes to the literature of construction innovation and benefits practitioners by providing a quantitative approach to demonstrate the driving power of large construction companies for technological innovation.     

An analysis of the effects of artificial intelligence on electric vehicle technology innovation using patent data

This study empirically analyzes the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) on electric vehicle technology innovation by employing a machine learning-based text mining model and the international patent classification (IPC) co-occurrence network analysis, using patent data filed from 1980 to 2017. Based on artificial intelligence algorithms classified, the study demonstrates the dynamic changing pattern of the convergence of artificial intelligence and electric vehicle technology and reveals how artificial intelligence has affected electric vehicle technology innovation over time. This study reveals that artificial intelligence accelerates the automation of electric vehicle driving, and that artificial intelligence algorithms that are widely used in electric vehicles have changed over time, and that technology areas of electric vehicles that AI affects also have been changed.     

A methodology for identifying results and impacts in technological innovation projects

As investments in policies and projects in science, technology, and innovation (STI) grow, it becomes increasingly important to determine the benefits society receives in return for the public resources thus invested. However, existing methodologies are somewhat limited in scope as they do not possess mechanisms for correctly identifying non-measurable, indirect results and impacts. This study addresses these knowledge shortcomings, and it proposes and validates an alternative method to identify the social, environmental, and economic outcomes and indirect impacts of STI projects. Findings indicate that the proposed method helps fills the gaps in knowledge about ex-post methodologies used to evaluate indirect results and impacts in STI projects. One aspect that sets the proposed method apart from the existing approaches is that it contemplates a wide range of analytical categories of indirect impacts for assessing the effects of STI projects. The principal academic and practical contribution of this study is the development of an accessible artifact that can identify the results and indirect impacts of projects in diverse areas of STI. The study extends the understanding on the methodologies to identifying results and indirect impacts of STI projects.     

The effects of technological innovation on sustainable development and environmental degradation: Evidence from China

Despite the rapid progress of the global economy and technology's key role, severe environmental and ecological challenges must be given proper attention to advance sustainable development. This paper uses the autoregressive distributed lag method on 40 years of data to investigate the impact of technological innovation on China's sustainable development and determine the channels through which technological innovation contributes to sustainable development. Our empirical results demonstrate that technological innovation is an important driver in promoting sustainable development, revealing that innovation adds to economic growth without harmful effects on the environment. The results also indicate that financial development significantly adds to China's sustainable development through carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions reduction, and economic growth further triggers the sustainability process by reducing CO₂ emissions. The findings of this paper enhance existing theories and contribute to the progress of sustainable development in China, the novel results outlining industry development drivers could potentially be used for developing global innovation policies integration.     

A text-based monitoring tool for the legitimacy and guidance of technological innovation systems

Disruptive technologies have to overcome their liability of newness and transition into their growth phase by achieving compliance with existing institutions and pursuing the most promising development paths. Technological innovation system (TIS) studies examined these two issues of legitimacy and guidance of innovation activities by investigating the public discourse with manual media analyses. However, these approaches are time-consuming, prone to subjectivity biases and limited in scope. Therefore, our paper proposes an automatic text analysis methodology based on unsupervised Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modelling and lexicon-based sentiment analysis. By processing 3423 German newspaper articles from the Nexis Uni database, we cover the development of battery-electric vehicles (BEV) in Germany from 2009 to 2019 and identify five socio-technical aspects. Our results indicate an intact legitimacy for the TIS, with Usability, R&D, and Industry being legitimate aspects, which also exhibit strong or improving guidance. In contrast, the Infrastructure and Policy aspects have been less legitimate and weak in guidance, suggesting the need for more holistic policy measures and infrastructure expansion to establish a mass market. Our proposed methodology adds to the toolbox of methods to analyze TIS and serves as a monitoring tool to reveal contested aspects and periods in the public discourse.     

The role of domestic markets in international technological innovation systems

This paper explores how countries in non-leadership positions can couple onto globally developing technological innovation systems (TISs) for renewable energy. The paper contributes to recent debates on relations between TISs and context, with a focus on how industries located in one country relate to the international TIS. Based on a survey of 102 firms in the offshore wind industry in Norway and semi-structured interviews, we find that even though Norwegian firms link up with international TISs, the lack of a domestic market represents a barrier. However, firms with activities in related industries and large firms are less exposed to this barrier. This poses a challenge as the offshore wind industry in Norway mainly consists of smaller firms. We therefore suggest that policies should aim to stimulate interaction between smaller suppliers and larger firms that potentially can act as intermediaries and provide access to international markets.     

The relationship between technological innovation and green transformation efficiency in China: An empirical analysis using spatial panel data

Challenged by climate change and severe damage of the ecological environment caused by carbon emissions, the process of green transformation in the world has to be urgently accelerated. This study adopted the super-efficiency DEA method to calculate the green transformation efficiency (GTE) of 30 provinces of China (except for Tibet) from 2009 to 2018. From the perspective of the technological innovation process, a spatial Durbin model is further proposed to investigate the impacts of technology research and development (TERD) and technology commercialization (TECO) on GTEs. The results showed that: (1) both TERD and TECO exerted significant positive effects on GTEs in local provinces, while the TERD coefficient was higher than that of TECO. (2) The spillover effect of TERD on GTEs in neighboring provinces was significantly negative, while the spillover effect of TERD was significantly positive. (3) Although the interaction between TERD and TECO positively affected GTEs, it also exerted a negative spillover effect on GTE. These findings indicate that the government should include the spatial spillover effects of TERD and TECO on GTEs when designing policies in support of technological innovation activities that contribute to green transformation.     

The growing number of patent citations to scientific papers: Changes in the world,nations, and fields

This study analyzes USPTO patents in the period 1998–2017. The number of science-related patents has increased twice as fast as the number of patents and scientific publications, and the number of cited papers per patent has almost doubled. These results vary substantially from one scientific and technological field to another. The proportion of the research papers cited by a patent has doubled. It refers to papers that are mostly published by the countries that have developed both scientific and technological capability and, surprisingly, are mainly used by inventors abroad. However, a weak relationship between the number of citations received from patents and papers reveals that the assessment of research performance needs some changes as the percentage of papers related to the innovations has grown over time.     

Reverse innovation,international patenting and economic inertia: Constraints to appropriating the benefits of technological innovation

In this paper we compare the role of outward-bound international patenting in “reverse innovation” and in conventional international modes of innovation. Through analysis of panel data from 148 countries over 18 years we reveal that, while all countries may in principle appropriate economic benefits from endogenous technological innovation by increasing their level of outward-bound international patenting, the ability of a country to do so may be hampered by the pre-existing level of its economy. We classify countries in to four strategic innovation quadrants—Slow Movers, Traders, Inventors and Cosmopolitans—based on the relative change over time in their competitiveness in international patenting and their per capita wealth. The mix of wealthy countries and less wealthy countries varies greatly between quadrants, with the wealthy countries dominating the Cosmopolitans quadrant and the less wealthy countries dominating the Slow Movers quadrant. We conclude that, for lower income countries to improve their success in appropriating the benefits of reverse innovation, innovators and would-be innovators based in those countries need to develop sophistication and prowess in international patenting strategy and intellectual property management tailored to the unique conditions of each country.     

The evolution of patent mining: Applying bibliometrics analysis and keyword network analysis

Text mining methods allow researchers to investigate technical documents (tech mining) and specifically explore patents for valuable information (patent mining. To the review literature and analyze the evolution of patent analysis and patent mining methods, bibliometrics analysis and keyword-based network analysis is applied on 143 papers extracted from the 'Web of science' database. Bibliometrics analysis was applied to determine top players researching in patent mining. Applying cluster analysis on the keyword network shows three main stages of patent analysis evolution. Also, it is discussed how patent mining is evolutionized in terms of information retrieval, pattern recognition and pattern analysis.     

The Nexus between technological performances of countries and incidence of cancers in society

Technological change is a human activity that generates a huge economic impact, also causing social change and specific environmental disorders. In particular, technological innovations support the industrial change and human development, which by social mechanisms of population growth, mass production and consumption can also engender diffusion of some genotoxic carcinogens. This study seems to show a main interrelationship between higher technological performance in OECD countries and incidence of some cancers, controlling screening technology that is a main indicator of better healthcare across countries. A vital relationship between observed facts endeavours to explain the interaction between diffusion of technology across countries and incidence of some diseases in society.     

Exploring the impact of organisational,technological and relational contingencies on innovation speed in the light of open innovation

ABSTRACT

Striving for competitive advantage pushes firms to innovate at a high speed along innovation contingencies and resource limitations they face. Yet, little is known about how management of contingencies such as absorptive capacity or technology radicalness can impact the innovation speed of firms. In this explorative study, we provide new empirical evidence to the innovation speed literature. We examine to what extent innovation speed is affected by organisational, technological, and relational contingencies that preoccupy firms with open innovation practices. Taking the firm perspective, we track innovation timeline and emphasise the complex trade-offs that firms encounter while innovating. Our results show that many of the contingencies, emphasised by the literature promoting innovation, could slow down its speed. Thus, strengthening competitiveness by accommodating contingencies can hinder time-critical adaptations. Furthermore, we find that innovation assets and capabilities can become liabilities for technologically innovative firms.     

The relationship between patent age and selling price across bundling strategies for United States patents,predominately for computer and communication technology

The age at which a patent yields maximum price remains under explored. This paper attempts to demystify the patent age-price relationship using 510 US patents sold in US auctions. Results show computer and communication singletons sold during second half of their life (∼after10 years 2 months) exhibit significantly higher price than those sold before. No such relationship came significant for the portfolios sold. Further, age-price relationships are analysed with different bundling strategies composed of different patent family types and others, and technology fields as controls. The paper concludes with discussing the managerial implications.     

Identifying barriers to wind energy diffusion in Colombia: A function analysis of the technological innovation system and the wider context

By utilizing only half of its total technical wind energy potential, Colombia would be able to supply the entire country's demand for electricity. Yet, Colombia has an installed capacity of 19.5 MW from wind power, representing about 0.4% of the total technical potential. In this paper, the slow diffusion of wind energy in Colombia is analyzed, by evaluating the functions of the Technological Innovation System (TIS) along with the influence of the wider context (Landscape Factors). A combination of expert evaluations (structured and semi-structured interviews) and a history event analysis revealed existing weaknesses in the TIS functions and influence from the wider context (landscape level). Several factors at the landscape level were found to have a significant influence on the TIS functions for wind energy in Colombia. Policy recommendations are provided to address barriers in order to advance the diffusion of wind energy in Colombia.     

Beyond patent analytics: Insights from a scientific and technological data mashup based on a case example

Although access to open and commercial digital sources is easily available thanks to the proliferation of the internet, R&D departments still face the challenge of how to analyze information from several sources. This paper addresses this issue specifically when technological and scientific information needs to be analyzed in an integrated manner. 12,577 families of patents, 2601 scientific papers and 706 news articles are combined, normalized and analyzed using their own metadata and text. A software tool is used to extract insights from semi-structured and unstructured data by means of text mining. Additionally, interactive force-directed graph visualization is employed to show the multiple relations of concepts during different time periods with regard to the entire technology ecosystem. Through a case study of 3D printing technology, this paper shows how to apply mashup and obtain the benefits, and it defines the challenges of using interactive visualization representation.     

Ten years of the genomic era in Brazil: Impacts on technological development assessed by scientific production and patent analysis

Over ten years ago Brazil entered the era of genome projects with the launch of its first sequencing effort. Since then, a series of projects have been undertaken in the country, greatly contributing to the formation of scientific research networks, related infrastructure and specialized labor. Today, Brazil’s competence in this area is internationally recognized and it is one of the main countries in the number of genomes sequenced. This article examines the effects of these genome initiatives on Brazilian technological innovation, through a broad bibliometric review, comprising the analysis of academic and patent publications, which revealed that the development of technology has not kept pace with scientific output.     

Applying an anchor based patent mapping approach: Basic conception and the case of carbon fiber reinforcements

Patent mapping is an important method for analyzing technological patterns both for scientific research and strategic tasks in companies. In this paper we focus on a specific type of technological pattern, namely the analysis of patents' positions in relation to predefined positions of application fields. For this purpose we use an anchoring approach. We apply semantic patent measurement and discuss RadViz as a powerful method to visualize the measurement's results and to provide insightful motion patterns for monitoring technology change. Moreover, we present an algorithm to define so called anchor points as high dimensional reference points by using textual elements of patents. By the example of carbon fiber reinforcements we demonstrate the usefulness of our approach. Thus, our approach enables academics to analyze important types of technological patterns like convergence or divergence by means of a new instrument and gives practitioners like the R&D management of companies the opportunity to build a reliable strategic business decision support.     

Novel data structure and visualization tool for studying technology evolution based on patent information: The DTFootprint and the TechSpectrogram

We introduce a new, bespoke data structure to analyze and visualize the evolution of a technology. The technology under analysis is defined by a set of patents corresponding to a technical field, owned by a company or invented by a team of research. Our data structure, the Dynamic Technology Footprint –DTFootprint–, facilitates the analysis and visualization of trends and dynamics of a given technology, and therefore the evolution of a technical field, a company, or a team of people. A graphical tool based on our data structure is defined, it is named Technology Spectrogram –TechSpectrogram–, because it is inspired by the acoustic frequency spectrograms: as the acoustic frequency spectrograms visualize the dynamics of an acoustic wave showing the evolution of its frequency components our tool shows the dynamics of a technology showing the evolution of its technological components, which are represented by the whole set of IPC-codes. Our graphical tool, the TechSpectrogram is shown for some study cases, and its application to the history of technology and technology management are disclosed.