measuring recombinatorial innovation and its diffusion

Measuring Recombinatorial Innovation and its Diffusion: Patent Citation Distance Measures of Knowledge

Translation, Integration, Diffusion and Scope

Ryan Whalen, Dalhousie UniversityNoshir Contractor, Northwestern University

This research was supported by grant W911NF-14-1-0686 from the U.S. Army Research Office. The views, opinions, and/or findings contained in this

presentation are those of the authors, and should not be construed as an official Department of the Army position, policy, or decision, unless so designated by

other documents

Overview

• Understanding & measuring innovation is hard• Citation analyses lack important context• Semantic distance can help enrich these

measures• Applying these measures shows recent

changes in the way knowledge is recombined and the way ideas diffuse

Combinatorial Innovation• The generation of new ideas and inventions

relies on combining preexisting ideas.

Understanding Innovation & Measuring Impact

• Understanding patterns of idea recombination is difficult

• Likewise, impact measures are coarse• Citation counting is inexact• Metadata not ideal

Semantic Distance

• Citation measures can be weighted by accounting for content

• Proximate and Distant citations are qualitatively different

Data

• Granted utility patents from 1976-2014• ~5,000,000 patents• ~52,000,000 citations• 500 dimension LSA• Cosine distance

Four ways to conceptualize semantic citation distance

Citing

Citing

CitedCiting

Cited

Cited

Backward Citations

Forward Citations

Forward v. Backward

Four ways to conceptualize citation semantic distance

Backward Citations Forward CitationsCiting/Cited Knowledge translation

Co-Cited or Co-Citing distance

Citing

Citing

CitedCiting

Cited

Cited

Backward Citations Forward Citations


Backward Citations Forward CitationsCiting/Cited Knowledge translation

Co-Cited or Co-Citing distance Knowledge integration

Citing

Citing

CitedCiting

Cited

Cited



Backward Citations Forward CitationsCiting/Cited Knowledge translation Knowledge diffusion

Co-Cited or Co-Citing distance Knowledge integration

Citing

Citing

CitedCiting

Cited

Cited



Backward Citations Forward CitationsCiting/Cited Knowledge translation Knowledge diffusion

Co-Cited or Co-Citing distance Knowledge integration Knowledge scope

Citing

Citing

CitedCiting

Cited

Cited


Backward Citing/Cited Distance

• Measures the distance between a patent and all of the patents it cites

• Suggests distance from which inventors draw knowledge Citing

Cited

Cited


Citing/Cited Knowledge translation Knowledge diffusion

Cited/Cited or Citing/Citing distance

Knowledge integration Knowledge scope

Measures the distance between a document and all of those that it

cites

Knowledge Translation

Backward Co-Cited Distance

• Measures the distance between all of the patents cited by the focal patent

• Demonstrates the diversity of knowledge drawn upon Citing

Cited

Cited





Measures the pairwise distance between cited

documents

Knowledge Integration

Forward Citing/Cited Distance

• Measures the distance between a patent and all of the patents that go on to cite it

• Suggests the degree to which a patent’s knowledge diffuses to distant disciplines





Measures the distance between a document and all of those cite it

Citing

Citing

Cited

Knowledge Diffusion

Forward Co-Citing Distance

• Measures the distance between a patent and all of the patents it cites

• Suggests the degree to which a patent has knowledge that is useful to diverse disciplines





Measures the distance between the

documents that cite a document

Citing

Citing

Cited

Knowledge Scope

Discussion

• Understanding backwards citation distance• Utilizing forward citation distance• Understanding change over time• Related work:

– Backwards citation patterns + impact– Backwards citation patterns + teams + impact

Thanks

[email protected]

This research was supported by grant W911NF-14-1-0686 from the Army Research Office. The views, opinions, and/or findings contained in this

presentation are those of the authors, and should not be construed as an official Department of the Army position, policy, or decision, unless so designated by

other documents

Extra slides

General Similarity

Citation Similarity

Co-citing Similarity

Co-cited Similarity

Changes in baseline similarity

Scientific Article Citations Distance by Year

Measuring co-citing/co-citing similarity

First, find all cited or citing references

Calculate the distances Between them


0.2

0.8

0.60.5

0.7

0.8

0.20.3 0.9

Calculate the distances Between them


0.2

0.60.4

0.2

Measuring co-citing/co-cited similarity

Find the minimum spanning tree

measuring recombinatorial innovation and its diffusion

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