Showing papers on "International Patent Classification published in 2004"

Scientific and Technological Performance by Gender

Abstract: The availability of sex-disaggregated data in the fields of research, technology and development is extremely important for supporting the growing political commitment to promote and monitor women participation in the different fields of S&T. During the late 1990s the European Commission identified as a priority the availability of this data. Even if scientific publications and patents are widely accepted indicators of scientific and technological performances, until now it has been impossible to measure bibliometric and patent output by gender in a large set of data. Starting from a feasibility study carried out for the European Commission on the whole set of patents published in 1998 by the European Patent Office and on 30,000 authors of items published in 1995 on scientific journals of international relevance, the paper demonstrates that it is possible to obtain robust gender indicators on S&T output.

Opening the Black Box

Abstract: The paper presents methodological approaches to statistical patent analyses. The references to timescales, countries of origin, and patent offices largely determine the outcome of such analyses; in particular, for country comparisons. For instance, considerable differences appear if results are compared based on priority, application, or grant years. For interpreting the patent figures at specific offices it proves important to consider the geostrategic position of the office. Advanced approaches such as the triad concept lead to more balanced results, but their assessment has to include a consideration of international patent flows. For quality indicators it has to be taken into account that patents are always two-dimensional and have technical and economic aspects. In principle early quality indicators primarily cover the technological content. A further issue is the definition of samples aiming at a large number of suitable documents which is sometimes contradictory to the target of completeness.

Patents and Publications

Abstract: The quantitative appraisal, partly through bibliometrics, of science-technology connections has made great progress in the last decade. We investigate in this chapter the lexical linkage between articles and patents, an alternative method to the systematic exploitation of the citations of patents to scientific papers. We explore in particular the ability to establish correspondence tables between patent classification and scientific categories. After a reminder of the methodological background (S&T linkages, lexical methods, statistical measures) we report an exploratory study based on a subset of the Chemical Abstracts database (CA) that covers both articles and patents by a very precise indexing system. Connection measures have been established, first on controlled vocabulary, and secondly on some natural language fields. The comparison shows some robustness of the lexical approach, with clear limitations at the micro level: topic sharing between a particular article and a particular patent cannot be interpreted in the general case as the sharing of a research question. At the macro level, for example IPC sub-classes and ISI subject categories, the lexical approach is an appealing technique, complementary to usual citation based analysis built on very sparse matrices, because informetric performances of lexical methods can be tuned in a large scope of precision-recall features. The extension to databases specific either to articles or patents requires language processing which can be alleviated if macro level correspondence is solely sought.

Automated categorization of German-language patent documents

Abstract: The categorization of patent documents is a difficult task that we study how to automate most accurately. We report the results of applying a variety of machine learning algorithms for training expert systems in German-language patent classification tasks. The taxonomy employed is the International Patent Classification, a complex hierarchical classification scheme in which we make use of 115 classes and 367 subclasses. The system is designed to handle natural language input in the form of the full text of a patent application. The effect on the categorization precision of indexing either the patent claims or the patent descriptions is reported. We describe several ways of measuring the categorization success that account for the attribution of multiple classification codes to each patent document. We show how the hierarchical information inherent in the taxonomy can be used to improve automated categorization precision. Our results are compared to an earlier study of automated English-language patent categorization.

National Patterns of Technology Accumulation: Use of Patent Statistics

Abstract: We use US Patent Statistics to depict national patterns of technology accumulation in Japan and EU countries. Two properties of country profiles are confirmed, namely, stability over time with a country and differentiation across countries. The main novelty introduced here is the combined analysis of overall technological advantage, performance in fast growing areas and impact. The results show that in many areas of technology in which EU countries have an overall relative advantage, their performance in the subfields of highest technological opportunity is weak. On the other hand, Japan seems to have a consistent level of performance both in aggregate and in fast growing areas.

The Technological Output of Scientific Institutions

Abstract: Up to now the contribution of scientific institutions to technology is considered to be primarily indirect. However, an analysis of patent applications of European public research institutions shows that they contribute about one half of all patent applications in selected science-based technology fields in the life sciences and nanotechnology. This finding documents a high direct contribution of science institutions to the generation of technology. The share of public non-profit institutions proves to be important, in particular in early stages of the technology life cycle; scientific institutions obviously play the role of lead actors. A comparison between European and German data reveals a lower, but still quite high share of public research institutes in other areas of science-based technology, so that the general statement of a high direct technology contribution holds. With regard to scientific institutions, patent indicators do not replace, but rather complement publication indicators and reflect an additional dimension of performance.

Patent Profiling for Competitive Advantage

Abstract: This chapter introduces text mining of patents in support of technology management. Technological innovation models point to empirical measures that relate to prospects for successful commercialisation. We present an 8-step process for analysing entire patent sets on a given topic to generate such ‘innovation indicators.’l We illustrate for the case of fuel cells.

The Industrial Application of Patent Analysis: An Empirical Study

Abstract: This research investigates the value of patent analysis in an industrial context. An empirical approach is taken to test the benefits and limitations of a series of patent analysis techniques. The technology profiles of a group of competitor companies within the oil/petrochemicals area are mapped to evaluate the analysis techniques. Patent quantity analysis benefits from speed of execution but provides no indication of patent quality. The International Patent Classification (IPC) hierarchy can map a company’s technological diversity but the correlation of IPC categories with industry or product areas may present difficulties in a business-focused analysis. An experiment within the polymer chemistry area suggests there is a positive association between a patent’s citation counts and its commercial significance, as rated by expert grading. This supports the use of patent citation data to compare the quality of companies’ patent portfolios but the time lag to build citation counts may limit its usefulness in practice. Maps of inter-company patent references may indicate technological leadership but the value of other bibliographic-based techniques appears more marginal. A trend of inter-company differences in the volume of the ‘References Cited’ list is observed. If confirmed, this could impact the value of bibliographic-based patent analysis techniques. Patent analysis can assist in a merger evaluation, particularly at the due diligence phase, but it is often of secondary importance to financial and product market information. Several factors that may distort patent statistics are identified. These include inadequate company name consolidation, errors in patent classification and differences in national patent legislation. The study concludes that patent analysis has a valid place in the corporate environment, provided the output is interpreted judiciously.