Sources of inspiration? Making sense of scientific references in patents

Scientific references in patent documents can be used as indicators signaling science-technology interactions. Whether they reflect a direct ‘knowledge flow’ from science to technology is subject of debate. Based on 33 interviews with inventors at Belgian firms and knowledge-generating institutes active in nanotechnology, biotechnology and life sciences, we analyze the extent to which scientific references in patents reflect sources of inspiration. Our results indicate that scientific knowledge acts as a source of inspiration for about 50 % of the inventions. At the same time, the scientific references cited in patent documents and available in patent databases do not provide an accurate picture in this respect: 30 % of patents that were inspired by scientific knowledge do not contain any scientific references. Moreover, if scientific references are present, half of them are evaluated as unimportant or background information by the inventor. Overall, these observations provide evidence that scientific references in patent documents signal relatedness with the implied inventions without necessarily implying a direct, inspirational, knowledge flow between both activity realms.     

Mapping of biotechnology patents of China from 1995–2008

The patents of China in biotechnology in the United States Patent and Trademark Office during 1995–2008 have been analyzed in this paper with the help of bibliometrics and social network analysis techniques. The analysis has been carried out from several perspectives including total patent output of industries, universities and public research institutes (PRIs) and their positions in the knowledge network, the main innovators and their interactions, the collaboration among Chinese regions and the collaborations from abroad. The results show that though with some improvements, the patent performance of Chinese organizations and regions in biotechnology still need to be improved. The connections between Chinese innovators are not very cohesive and they depend heavily on foreign knowledge, especial knowledge from U.S. multinational firms and universities. The important innovators of China in this field are mainly PRIs and universities. More and stronger firm innovators, especially large and powerful multinational companies, are strongly needed for the nation’s biotechnology industry.     

Sleeping beauties cited in patents: Is there also a dormitory of inventions?

A ‘Sleeping Beauty in Science’ is a publication that goes unnoticed (‘sleeps’) for a long time and then, almost suddenly, attracts a lot of attention (‘is awakened by a prince’). In our foregoing study we found that roughly half of the Sleeping Beauties are application-oriented and thus are potential Sleeping Innovations. In this paper we investigate a new topic: Sleeping Beauties that are cited in patents. In this way we explore the existence of a dormitory of inventions. To our knowledge this is the first study of this kind. We investigate the time lag between publication of the Sleeping Beauty and the first citation by a patent. We find that patent citation may occur before or after the awakening and that the depth of the sleep, i.e., citation rate during the sleeping period, is no predictor for later scientific or technological impact of the Sleeping Beauty. A surprising finding is that Sleeping Beauties are significantly more cited in patents than ‘normal’ papers. Inventor–author self-citations relations occur only in a small minority of the Sleeping Beauties that are cited in patents, but other types of inventor–author links occur more frequently. We develop an approach in different steps to explore the cognitive environment of Sleeping Beauties cited in patents. First, we analyze whether they deal with new topics by measuring the time-dependent evolution in the entire scientific literature of the number of papers related to both the precisely defined topics as well as the broader research theme of the Sleeping Beauty during and after the sleeping time. Second, we focus on the awakening by analyzing the first group of papers that cites the Sleeping Beauty. Third, we create concept maps of the topic-related and the citing papers for a time period immediately following the awakening and for the most recent period. Finally, we make an extensive assessment of the cited and citing relations of the Sleeping Beauty. We find that tunable co-citation analysis is a powerful tool to discover the prince(s) and other important application-oriented work directly related to the Sleeping Beauty, for instance papers written by authors who cite Sleeping Beauties in both the patents of which they are the inventors, as well as in their scientific papers.     

“80% of technical information found only in patents” – Is there proof of this ?

“80% of technical information is published only in patents”. This sentence is well known among information and patent professionals. Within this publication the commonly considered source of this statement is cited and examples of different published patent statistics are given, illustrating previous approaches of quantifying information.Prospects for the importance of patent literature are provided considering the rising number of patent publications over the last decades.The conclusion of this verification is that the 80%-phrase cannot be used without making some limitations, nevertheless this will continue existing for a long period of time.     

Produce patents or journal articles? A cross-country comparison of R&D productivity change

This paper compares R&D productivity change across countries considering the fact that national R&D expenditure may produce multiple outputs, including patents and journal articles. Based on the concept of directional distance function and Luenberger productivity index, this paper develops a Luenberger R&D productivity change (LRC) index and then decomposes it into R&D efficiency change (catch-up effect) and R&D technical change (innovation effect). Utilizing a panel dataset of 29 countries over the 1998–2005 period to implement the empirical estimation, the results show that the R&D productivity growth is mainly attributed to the innovation effect; meanwhile, non-OECD countries have better performance on both efficiency change and technical change than their OECD counterparts. Moreover, patent-oriented R&D productivity growth serves as the main source of national R&D productivity growth than the journal article-oriented one.     

How do latecomers catch up with forerunners? Analysis of patents and patent citations in the field of flat panel display technologies

This paper sets out to explore the patterns of technological change and knowledge spillover in the field of flat panel display (FPD) technology, along with the catching-up behavior of latecomers, through the analysis of US patents and patent citations between 1976 and 2005. Our results show that: (i) the catching-up by FPD technology latecomers began at the transition stage (1987-1996) when the dominant design became established in areas with high ‘revealed technology advantage’ (RTA); (ii) there is no apparent localization of knowledge spillover amongst FPD technology latecomers; instead, higher citation frequencies of forerunners’ patents were found in latecomers’ FPD patents during the transition (1987–1996) and post-dominant design (1997–2005) stages and; and (iii) a few extraordinary peaks were found in the citation frequency of forerunners’ patents at long citation lags in latecomers’ FPD patents, particularly during the transition stage (1987–1996), indicative of the knowledge threshold which latecomers need to cross in order to catch up with forerunners.     

The Anthropocene: a new epoch of geological time?

Anthropogenic changes to the Earth's climate, land, oceans and biosphere are now so great and so rapid that the concept of a new geological epoch defined by the action of humans, the Anthropocene, is widely and seriously debated. Questions of the scale, magnitude and significance of this environmental change, particularly in the context of the Earth's geological history, provide the basis for this Theme Issue. The Anthropocene, on current evidence, seems to show global change consistent with the suggestion that an epoch-scale boundary has been crossed within the last two centuries.     

On the shoulders of students? The contribution of PhD students to the advancement of knowledge

Using the participation in peer reviewed publications of all doctoral students in Quebec over the 2000–2007 period, this paper provides the first large scale analysis of their research effort. It shows that PhD students contribute to about a third of the publication output of the province, with doctoral students in the natural and medical sciences being present in a higher proportion of papers published than their colleagues of the social sciences and humanities. Collaboration is an important component of this socialization: disciplines in which student collaboration is higher are also those in which doctoral students are the most involved in peer-reviewed publications. In terms of scientific impact, papers co-signed by doctorate students obtain significantly lower citation rates than other Quebec papers, except in natural sciences and engineering. Finally, this paper shows that involving doctoral students in publications is positively linked with degree completion and ulterior career in research.     

What makes a scientific article influential? The case of demographers

In this paper we examine, by means of a citation analysis, which factors influence the impactof articles published in demography journals between 1990 and 1992. Several quantifiablecharacteristics of the articles (characteristics with respect to authors, visibility, content andjournals) are strongly related to their subsequent impact in the social sciences. Articles are mostfrequently cited when they deal with empirical, ahistorical research focusing on populations in thedeveloped world, when they are prominently placed in a journal issue, when they are written inEnglish and when they appear in core demography journals. Furthermore, although eminentscholars are likely to be cited on the basis of their reputation, the effect of reputation appears to besmall in demography.     

The data source of this study is Web of Science Core Collection? Not enough

Scientometrics - Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science Core Collection, a comprehensive database consisting of ten sub-datasets, is increasingly applied in academic research across over two...     

Multiple regression analysis of a patent’s citation frequency and quantitative characteristics: the case of Japanese patents

Although many studies have been conducted to clarify the factors that affect the citation frequency of “academic papers,” there are few studies where the citation frequency of “patents” has been predicted on the basis of statistical analysis, such as regression analysis. Assuming that a patent based on a variety of technological bases tends to be an important patent that is cited more often, this study examines the influence of the number of cited patents’ classifications and compares it with other factors, such as the numbers of inventors, classifications, pages, and claims. Multiple linear, logistic, and zero-inflated negative binomial regression analyses using these factors are performed. Significant positive correlations between the number of classifications of cited patents and the citation frequency are observed for all the models. Moreover, the multiple regression analyses demonstrate that the number of classifications of cited patents contributes more to the regression than do other factors. This implies that, if confounding between factors is taken into account, it is the diversity of classifications assigned to backward citations that more largely influences the number of forward citations.     

Air Cooling Martensites—The Future of Carbon Neutral Steel Forgings?

The air-hardening ductile forging steels belong to the third generation of advanced high-strength steels and achieve their final, martensitic microstructure simply by air cooling from the forging heat. The present conference paper reviews the 15 years of development, different alloying strategies, and metallurgical throwbacks like manganese embrittlement. Furthermore, the most recent results concerning microstructure, mechanical properties, and cyclic material behavior obtained from an industrial trial melt are discussed together with the implications of these results on the carbon footprint (CF) and their impact on the resource efficiency of forged steel components. It is demonstrated that the CF of a steel product needs to be discussed on different levels, as the material-, process-, and product-level contributions need to be considered. Furthermore, a case is made for new high-strength steels in the context of circular economy, as increase fatigue resistance enables lightweighting potentials.     

The Establishment of National TC of Superconduction

National standardization technical committee of superconduction was established on Aug 26th, 2003. Tmittee contains 22 experts, of which the percentage of professors and researchers reaches up to 77.3%mention there are four academician consultants, Gan Zizhao, Zhao Zhongxian and Yang Guozhen fromAcademy of Sciences, and Zhou Lian from China Academy of Engineering. The four academicians had ed earlier in the 7th Academic Seminar of Superconduction in April that the high-tech superconduct…     

The “rule of multiplicity of three”: Does it work in carbon nanotubes?

The rule of multiplicity of three according to which a nanotube has a metallic conductivity if the difference between the chiral indices is a multiple of three or behaves as a semiconductor or dielectric in the opposite case, is commonly used for interpretation of the physical properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). This rule is shown to have limited validity, for example, for single-walled CNTs considered as strongly correlated systems in terms of the perturbation theory, in which the state of individual atoms is a zero approximation and the electron site-to-site hopping is regarded as a perturbation. Due to a strong Coulomb interaction between π-electrons at one site, the energy spectrum is divided into two Hubbard subbands resulting in conditions when the rule of multiplicity of three does not work.     

The Coming of Materials Science

“Absolutely riveting reading: A master piece.” (Sir Alan Cottrell) No more words could be said for a book already commented by another eminent scientist of the discipline, who is also a celebrated master in the understanding of materials and founding and growth of the science in the last half of a century at the end of the ten millennia since the use of fabrication and modification of man-made materials. We had the fortune and honour of receiving the earliest copies of the book in China during our meeting with the author either in England (Ko) or during the author's visit to China as a Foreign Member of the Chinese     

The story of Bioglass®

Historically the function of biomaterials has been to replace diseased or damaged tissues. First generation biomaterials were selected to be as bio-inert as possible and thereby minimize formation of scar tissue at the interface with host tissues. Bioactive glasses were discovered in 1969 and provided for the first time an alternative; second generation, interfacial bonding of an implant with host tissues. Tissue regeneration and repair using the gene activation properties of Bioglass provide a third generation of biomaterials. This article reviews the 40 year history of the development of bioactive glasses, with emphasis on the first composition, 45S5 Bioglass, that has been in clinical use since 1985. The steps of discovery, characterization, in vivo and in vitro evaluation, clinical studies and product development are summarized along with the technology transfer processes.