worldwide nanotechnology development: a comparative study of uspto, epo, and jpo patents xin li...

Worldwide Nanotechnology Development: A Comparative Study of USPTO, EPO, and JPO Patents

Xin Li Yiling LinHsinchun Chen

Dec 2006

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OutlineOutline

• Introduction• Background and Research Objectives• Research Design• Dataset• Basic Bibliographic Analysis• Content Map Analysis• Citation Network Analysis• Conclusions

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IntroductionIntroduction• 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.

Introduction

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IntroductionIntroduction• 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.

Introduction

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Our ResearchOur 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.

Introduction

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Patent AnalysisPatent 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)

Background and Research Objectives

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Patent Offices in the WorldPatent 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.


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Three Major Patent OfficesThree 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.


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Patent Offices’ EffectPatent 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.


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Patent Offices’ Effect (cont.)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).


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Utilizing Different Patent Offices’ RepositoriesUtilizing 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.


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Utilizing Different Patent Offices’ RepositoriesUtilizing 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.


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Research GapResearch 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.


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Research ObjectivesResearch 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.


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Patent parsing

Research DesignResearch Design

Data acquisition

USPTOdatabase

USPTOdatabase

Research status analysis

Topic coverageTopic coverage

Collected bykeywords

Content mapContent map

Citation NetworkCitation Network

Patent publicationPatent publication

Patent importance/strength of a repository

Patent importance/strength of a repository

Number of patentsNumber of patents

Average number of cites

Average number of cites

EPOdatabase

EPOdatabase

JPOdatabase

JPOdatabase

Knowledge diffusionKnowledge diffusion

Collected bykeywords

JPO dataset

EPO dataset

USPTO dataset

Patent statuschecking

Patent statuschecking

EPO+JPO patent

JPO patent

Patent status

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.

Research Design

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Research DesignResearch 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) .

Research Design

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Data AcquisitionData 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.

Research Design

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Research Status AnalysisResearch 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

Research Design

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Data LimitationsData 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.

Research Design

USPTO EPO JPO

Patent ID

Publication date

Inventor name

Assignee (applicant) institution name

Assignee (applicant) country N/A

Patent classification code IPC

USPC

IPC

EPC

IPC

EPC

Patent citation information N/A

Title

Abstract

Claim

Description

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Analysis PerformedAnalysis PerformedUSPTO EPO JPO

Patent publication trendNumber of patents by country in each year NoNumber of patents by country group in each year NoNumber of patents by assignee institution in each year Number of patents by technology field in each year

Patent impactAverage number of cites by country NoAverage number of cites by assignee institution NoAverage number of cites by technology field No

Topic coverageContent map analysis

Knowledge diffusionCountry citation network analysis NoAssignee institution citation network analysis NoTechnology field network analysis No

Research Design

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Data CollectionData 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.

Dataset

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Data: USPTO PatentsData: USPTO Patents• Comparing with "full-text" search

and "title-claims" search, “title-abstract” 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.

Dataset

Full-text search

Title-claims search

Title-abstract search

atomic force microscope 2,309 375 241atomic force microscopic 53 2 2atomic force microscopy 1,679 103 68atomic-force-microscope 6 0 0atomic-force-microscopy 3 0 0atomistic simulation 5 0 0biomotor 6 1 0molecular device 164 13 6molecular electronics 284 3 3molecular modeling 1,787 37 26molecular motor 88 3 0molecular sensor 31 7 0molecular simulation 43 2 2nano* 72,762 12,220 4,497quantum computing 66 25 19quantum dot* 609 185 117quantum effect* 563 58 36scanning tunneling microscope 1,097 205 145scanning tunneling microscopic 21 1 0scanning tunneling microscopy 809 50 28scanning-tunneling-microscope 24 0 0scanning-tunneling-microscopy 1 1 0selfassembl* 23 4 2self assembly 1,802 192 121self assembled 1,682 297 170self assembling 877 158 111self-assembly 1,625 173 108self-assembled 1,587 277 158self-assembling 807 147 102Total 90,813 14,539 5,962Unique Total 78,609 13,463 5,363

USPTO(1976-2004)

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Data: USPTO Patents (cont.)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

Dataset

Rank Assignee CountryNumber of

Patents1 United States 3,4502 Japan 5173 Germany 2044 France 1565 Republic of Korea 1316 Canada 1047 China (Taiwan) 718 United Kingdom 609 Netherlands 5410 Switzerland 4111 Australia 3412 Belgium 2413 Israel 2114 Italy 2015 Ireland 2016 Sweden 1817 India 1418 Spain 1219 China 920 Singapore 8

Rank Assignee Institution CountryNumber of

PatentsAverage

Patent Age1 IBM United States 171 6.652 The Regents of the University of California United States 123 4.303 The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy United States 82 5.154 Eastman Kodak Company United States 72 7.195 Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company United States 59 5.926 Massachusetts Institute of Technology United States 56 3.617 Xerox Corporation United States 55 4.718 Micron Technology, Inc. United States 53 2.099 Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. Japan 45 6.89

10 L'Oreal France 44 4.4511 Texas Instruments, Incorporated United States 41 5.4412 Motorola, Inc. United States 38 4.1113 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. United States 35 2.1714 General Electric Company Japan 31 4.4215 Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba United States 30 4.0316 Allied Signal Inc. Japan 28 3.2917 California Institute of Technology United States 27 2.5218 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. United States 27 0.3019 Hitachi, Ltd. Japan 27 6.9620 Hyperion Catalysis International, Inc. Japan 25 3.44

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Data: EPO PatentsData: EPO Patents

• 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.

Dataset

EPO(1978-2004)

atomic force microscope 69atomic force microscopic 2atomic force microscopy 21atomic-force-microscope 0atomic-force-microscopy 0atomistic simulation 0biomotor 0molecular device 4molecular electronics 3molecular modeling 2molecular motor 3molecular sensor 2molecular simulation 1nano* 2,024quantum computing 4quantum dot* 49quantum effect* 16scanning tunneling microscope 47scanning tunneling microscopic 0scanning tunneling microscopy 8scanning-tunneling-microscope 0scanning-tunneling-microscopy 0selfassembl* 0self assembly 33self assembled 31self assembling 48self-assembly 0self-assembled 0self-assembling 0Total 2,367Unique Total 2,328

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Data: EPO Patents (cont.)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

Dataset


PatentsAverage

Patent Age1 L'Oreal France 50 5.162 IBM United States 44 11.913 Rohm & Haas United States 41 3.414 Eastman Kodak Co United States 39 4.445 Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Republic of Korea 28 0.756 Japan Science & Tech Corp Japan 27 2.677 BASF AG Germany 25 6.568 Matsushita Electric Ind Co Ltd Japan 24 7.679 Allied Signal Inc United States 21 4.3310 Lucent Technologies Inc United States 21 3.2411 Japan Science & Tech Agency Japan 20 0.0012 Bayer AG Germany 19 5.1113 Univ California United States 19 4.8914 Centre Nat Rech Scient France 18 4.4415 Commissariat Energie Atomique France 18 3.0616 Inst Neue Mat Gemein Gmbh Germany 18 5.7217 Henkel Kgaa Germany 17 1.4118 Hewlett Packard Co United States 17 2.9419 Iljin Nanotech Co Ltd Republic of Korea 17 3.4720 Samsung Sdi Co Ltd Republic of Korea 17 2.24

Rank Assignee CountryNumber of

Patents1 United States 9252 Germany 3433 Japan 3234 France 2015 Republic of Korea 986 Switzerland 777 United Kingdom 728 Netherlands 519 Belgium 4210 Italy 3411 Canada 2612 Ireland 2613 Spain 2214 Israel 2015 Sweden 1816 Australia 1417 Austria 1318 China 919 Finland 720 India 7

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Data: JPO PatentsData: JPO Patents• 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.

Dataset

JPO(1976-2004)

atomic force microscope 62atomic force microscopic 1atomic force microscopy 0atomic-force-microscope 0atomic-force-microscopy 0atomistic simulation 0biomotor 0molecular device 3molecular electronics 3molecular modeling 1molecular motor 0molecular sensor 1molecular simulation 1nano* 635quantum computing 1quantum dot* 81quantum effect* 65scanning tunneling microscope 79scanning tunneling microscopic 1scanning tunneling microscopy 0scanning-tunneling-microscope 0scanning-tunneling-microscopy 0selfassembl* 0self assembly 0self assembled 1self assembling 5self-assembly 5self-assembled 0self-assembling 0Total 945Unique Total 923

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Data: JPO Patents (cont.)Data: JPO Patents (cont.)• Top 20 nanotechnology patent assignees based on “title-

abstract” search of patents published from 1976 to 2004

Dataset


PatentsAverage

Patent Age1 Nippon Electric Co Japan 103 7.172 Japan Science & Tech Corp Japan 48 2.293 Agency Ind Science Techn United States 43 6.214 Matsushita Electric Ind Co Ltd Japan 43 9.075 Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co Japan 31 5.616 Sony Corp Japan 30 8.107 Canon Kk Japan 28 8.758 Seiko Instr Inc Japan 26 8.359 Nat Inst for Materials Science United States 25 1.0010 Nat Inst of Adv Ind & Technol Japan 24 1.2511 Sharp Kk Japan 24 4.7912 Japan Res Dev Corp Japan 22 9.0013 Hitachi Ltd Japan 21 8.1914 IBM United States 21 8.0515 Jeol Ltd Japan 21 9.1916 L'Oreal France 20 6.0017 Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Japan 19 7.3218 Hitachi Metals Ltd Japan 13 7.5419 Fujitsu Ltd Japan 12 8.7520 Daiken Kagaku Kogyo Kk Japan 11 3.36

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Data: USPTO, EPO, and JPO PatentsData: USPTO, EPO, and JPO Patents

•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.

Dataset

• The numbers of nanotechnology patents published in USPTO, EPO and JPO by year (log scale) Nanotechnology Patents (1976-2004)

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Year

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of P

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nts

USPTO

EPO

JPO

Year USPTO EPO JPO1976 9 0 01977 18 0 01978 23 0 01979 11 0 11980 15 3 11981 25 3 01982 25 5 11983 24 6 11984 25 7 41985 33 7 11986 27 9 81987 46 10 01988 39 23 81989 65 24 61990 57 47 131991 85 35 291992 121 28 461993 123 42 451994 128 67 701995 160 73 651996 205 71 661997 238 93 511998 297 112 541999 367 125 782000 422 141 862001 524 235 782002 582 308 832003 739 364 782004 930 478 50

Nanotechnology Patents

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I. Basic Analysis- USPTO Patents by CountryI. 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)• Many countries had an increasing trend of nanotechnology patent publication

• 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.

• After 2002, the number of nanotechnology patents published by France experienced a decrease.

Basic Bibliographic Analysis

Top 20 Assignee Countries by Year

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United States

Japan

Germany

France

Republic of Korea

Canada

China (Taiwan)

United Kingdom

Netherlands

Switzerland

Australia

Belgium

Israel

Ireland

Italy

Sweden

India

Spain

China

Singapore

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Basic Analysis- EPO Patents by CountryBasic Analysis- EPO Patents by Country

• The United States filed more nanotechnology patents than other countries. The US nanotechnology patents showed an exponential increase trend.

• The Japan patents kept at the same level between 1989 and 2000. After 2000, there was a rapid growth of Japan patents.

•Germany patents remained at the same level after 2000.

•France patents were consistently increasing in EPO.

• 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

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United States

Germany

Japan

France

Republic of Korea

Switzerland

United Kingdom

Netherlands

Belgium

Italy

Canada

Ireland

Spain

Israel

Sweden

Australia

Austria

China

Finland

India

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Basic Analysis- USPTO Patents by Country Group Basic Analysis- USPTO Patents by Country Group • Assignee country group analysis by year, 1976-2004 (“title-abstract” search) (log scale)

• 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 each year.

YearUnited States

European Group Japan Others

1976 6 1 0 11977 12 1 0 21978 15 1 1 21979 8 1 0 11980 10 1 0 01981 20 3 0 11982 16 4 0 01983 14 5 0 21984 18 4 0 01985 21 5 0 01986 17 2 2 11987 32 4 1 01988 27 4 3 21989 47 7 6 21990 36 5 9 31991 53 10 10 21992 77 9 16 61993 82 6 21 41994 76 11 31 41995 102 11 24 141996 135 17 25 141997 157 26 31 81998 196 40 30 191999 237 45 34 282000 262 59 38 352001 348 63 37 432002 358 83 43 712003 478 73 66 922004 590 83 89 120


USPTO Country Groups (1976-2004)

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United States

European Group

Japan

Others

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Basic Analysis- EPO Patents by Country GroupBasic Analysis- EPO Patents by Country Group• Assignee country group analysis by year, 1978-2004 (“title-abstract” search) (log scale)

• 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

groups’ patents are fewer than the patents filed by the other two country groups.


YearUnitedStates

EuropeanGroup Japan Others

1978 0 0 0 01979 0 0 0 01980 2 1 0 11981 1 1 0 01982 2 3 0 01983 4 2 0 01984 4 1 1 11985 6 1 0 01986 6 2 1 01987 6 4 0 01988 12 8 1 11989 4 12 4 11990 18 13 14 31991 16 8 9 21992 8 9 10 11993 15 14 12 11994 30 29 7 21995 28 27 14 51996 28 22 16 61997 40 45 7 31998 37 46 16 131999 49 39 28 102000 52 56 14 192001 95 85 20 362002 122 118 35 372003 150 123 46 542004 190 154 68 75

EPO Country Groups (1978-2004)

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United States

European Group

Japan

Others

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Findings - Patents by Country and Country GroupFindings - 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.


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Basic Analysis- USPTO Patents by AssigneeBasic Analysis- USPTO Patents by Assignee• Top 10 nanotechnology patent assignee institutions in USPTO (“title-abstract” search) and their patents by year, 1976-2004

•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.


Top 10 USPTO Assignee Institutions

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IBM

The Regents of theUniversity of California

The United States ofAmerica as represented bythe Secretary of the NavyEastman Kodak Company

Minnesota Mining andManufacturing Company

Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology

Xerox Corporation

Micron Technology, Inc.

Matsushita ElectricIndustrial Co. Ltd.

L'Oreal

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Basic Analysis- EPO Patents by AssigneeBasic Analysis- EPO Patents by Assignee

• 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.

• Top 10 nanotechnology patent assignee institutions in EPO (“title-abstract” search) and their patents by year, 1978-2004


Top 10 EPO Assignee Institutions

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L'Oreal

IBM

Rohm & Haas

Eastman Kodak Co

Samsung ElectronicsCo Ltd

Japan Science &Tech Corp

BASF AG

Matsushita ElectricInd Co Ltd

Allied Signal Inc

Lucent TechnologiesInc

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Basic Analysis- JPO Patents by AssigneeBasic Analysis- JPO Patents by Assignee• Top 10 nanotechnology patent assignee institutions in JPO (“title-abstract” search) and their patents by year, 1976-2004

• Most of the top assignees were Japanese companies/ institutions.

• 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.


Top 10 JPO Assignee Institutions

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Nippon Electric Co

Japan Science & TechCorp

Agency Ind ScienceTechn

Matsushita Electric IndCo Ltd

Tokyo ShibauraElectric Co

Sony Corp

Canon Kk

Seiko Instr Inc

Nat Inst for MaterialsScience

Nat Inst of Adv Ind &Technol

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Findings - Patents by AssigneeFindings - 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.


38

Basic Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields 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 Patents428 Stock material or miscellaneous articles 621257 Active solid-state devices (e.g., transistors, solid-state diodes) 518427 Coating processes 506438 Semiconductor device manufacturing: process 503250 Radiant energy 465424 Drug, bio-affecting and body treating compositions 434423 Chemistry of inorganic compounds 379435 Chemistry: molecular biology and microbiology 289524 Synthetic resins or natural rubbers -- part of the class 520 series 24373 Measuring and testing 224

39

Basic Analysis- USPTO Technology FieldsBasic Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields

• Top 10 US classification technology fields by year (1976-2004) (“title-abstract” search)

• Most of the top 10 technology fields had an increasing trend of patent publication.

• 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.


Top 10 USPTO Technology Fields (USPC)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

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

Year

Num

ber

of

Pate

nts

428

257

438

427

250

424

423

435

524

514

40

Basic Analysis- USPTO Technology FieldsBasic 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 PatentsH01L Semiconductor devices; electric solid state devices not

otherwise provided for748

A61K Preparations for medical, dental, or toilet purposes 431H01J Electric discharge tubes or discharge lamps 364B32B Layered products, i.e. products built-up of strata of flat or

non-flat, e.g. cellular or honeycomb352

G01N Investigating or analysing materials by determining theirchemical or physical properties

344

B05D Performing operations transporting 211C08K Use of inorganic or non-macromolecular organic 182G01B Measuring length, thickness, or similar linear dimensions

measuring angles measuring areas measuring irregularitiesof surfaces or contours

169

G02B Optical elements, systems, or apparatus 147B01D Separation 139

• Technology field “H01L” had the most nanotechnology patents published, almost double the amount of the second largest technology field “A61K.”

41

Basic Analysis- USPTO Technology FieldsBasic Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields

• Top 10 IPC technology fields by year (1976-2004) (“title-abstract” search)


• 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.


Top 10 USPTO Technology Fields(IPC)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

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

Year

Num

ber

of P

aten

ts

H01L

A61K

H01J

B32B

G01N

B05D

C08K

G01B

G02B

B01D

42

Basic Analysis- EPO Technology FieldsBasic Analysis- EPO Technology Fields• Top 10 technology fields according to the number of patents published between 1978 and 2004 (“title-

abstract” search)


IPC Class Class Name Number of PatentsA61K Preparations for medical, dental, or toilet purposes 347H01L Semiconductor devices; electric solid state devices not

otherwise provided for271

G01N Investigating or analysing materials by determining theirchemical or physical properties

226

C01B Non-metallic elements; compounds thereof 222C08K Use of inorganic or non-macromolecular organic substances

as compounding ingredients152

B01J Chemical or physical processes, e.g. catalysis, colloidchemistry; their relevant apparatus

141

H01J Electric discharge tubes or discharge lamps 119C08L Compositions of macromolecular compounds 90G01B Measuring length, thickness, or similar linear dimensions;

measuring angles; measuring areas; measuring irregularitiesof surfaces or contours

87

B01D Separation 81

43

Basic Analysis- EPO Technology Fields Basic Analysis- EPO Technology Fields • Top 10 technology fields by year (1978-2004) (“title-abstract” search)


• 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.


Top 10 EPO Technology Fields (IPC)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

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

Year

Num

ber

of P

aten

ts

A61K

H01L

G01N

C01B

C08K

B01J

H01J

C08L

G01B

B01D

44

Basic Analysis- JPO Technology FieldsBasic Analysis- JPO Technology Fields• Top 10 technology fields according to the number of patents published between 1976 and 2004 (“title-

abstract” search)


IPC Class Class Name Number of PatentsH01L Semiconductor devices; electric solid state devices not otherwise provided for 210C01B Non-metallic elements compounds thereof 153H01J Electric discharge tubes or discharge lamps 135G01B Measuring length, thickness, or similar linear dimensions; measuring angles;

measuring areas; measuring irregularities of surfaces or contours121

G01N Investigating or analysing materials by determining their chemical or physicalproperties

120

B01J Electric discharge tubes or discharge lamps 79H01S Devices using stimulated emission 56B82B Nano-structures manufacture or treatment thereof 51A61K Preparations for medical, dental, or toilet purposes 45C23C Coating metallic material coating material with metallic material surface

treatment of metallic material by diffusion into the surface, by chemicalconversion or substitution coating by vacuum evaporation, by sputtering, by ionimplantation or by chemical vapour deposition, in general

45

45

Basic Analysis- JPO Technology FieldsBasic 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.

•Technology field “C01B: Non-metallic elements; compounds thereof” had a steady growth in patent publication.


Top 10 JPO Technology Fields (IPC)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

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

Year

Num

ber

of P

aten

ts

H01L

C01B

H01J

G01B

G01N

B01J

H01S

B82B

A61K

C23C

46

Summary: USPTO/EPTO/JPO Technology FieldsSummary: USPTO/EPTO/JPO Technology Fields


• 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.

IPC Class Number of Patents IPC Class Number of Patents IPC Class Number of Patents

2 A61K 431 A61K 347 A61K 4510 B01D 139 B01D 81 B01J 796 B05D 211 B01J 141 B82B 514 B32B 352 C01B 222 C01B 1537 C08K 182 C08K 152 C23C 458 G01B 169 C08L 90 G01B 1215 G01N 344 G01B 87 G01N 1209 G02B 147 G01N 226 H01J 1353 H01J 364 H01J 119 H01L 2101 H01L 748 H01L 271 H01S 56

RankUSPTO EPO JPO

47

Findings - Technology FieldsFindings - 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.


48

Basic Analysis- Average Number of Cites by CountryBasic 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) (“title-abstract” search)

• EPO top 10 countries with more than 10 patents based on the average number of cites measure (1978-2004) (“title-abstract” search)


Country Name Number of Patents Average Number of Cites

Australia 34 2.09Japan 517 1.90Switzerland 41 1.90United States 3,450 1.81Ireland 20 1.55Canada 104 1.30France 156 1.10China (Taiwan) 71 0.89Germany 204 0.89Israel 21 0.86

Country Name Number of Patents Average Number of Cites

Japan 326 0.22Spain 22 0.18Belgium 42 0.17France 201 0.15United States 929 0.12Republic of Korea 98 0.11United Kingdom 72 0.11Switzerland 77 0.10Israel 20 0.10Netherlands 51 0.10

49

Basic Analysis- Average Number of Cites by Assignee InstitutionBasic 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)

• 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 Number of Patents Average Number of Cites

Digital Instruments, Inc. 24 9.42AMCOL International Corporation 22 9.05Agere Systems Guardian Corp. 11 9.00Olympus Optical Co., Ltd. 15 7.47Hyperion Catalysis International, Inc. 25 6.84The Penn State Research Foundation 18 5.39Allied Signal Inc. 28 5.21The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University 21 5.14President & Fellows of Harvard College 25 5.12Nano Systems L.L.C. 10 4.40

Assignee Institution Number of Patents Average Number of Cites

Canon Kk 12 0.92Lucent Technologies Inc 21 0.52IBM 44 0.50Hitachi Europ Ltd 15 0.47Hitachi Ltd 15 0.40L'Oreal 50 0.38Matsushita Electric Ind Co Ltd 24 0.38Rohm & Haas 41 0.37Lee Cheol Jin 11 0.36Max Planck Gesellschaft 10 0.30

50

Basic Analysis- Average Number of Cites by Technology FieldBasic 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 (1976-2004) (“title-abstract” search)

• EPO top 10 technology fields with more than 10 patents based on the average number of cites measure (1978-2004) (“title-abstract” search)


IPCClass

Class NameNumber of

PatentsAverage Number

of CitesD01F Chemical features in the manufacture of artificial filaments, threads, fibres, bristles, or ribbons;

apparatus specially adapted for the manufacture of carbon filaments80 4.31

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

12 3.58

H01J Electric discharge tubes or discharge lamps 364 3.40C01B Non-metallic elements compounds thereof 136 3.39G01B Measuring length, thickness, or similar linear dimensions measuring angles measuring areas

measuring irregularities of surfaces or contours169 3.12

C25D Processes for the electrolytic or electrophoretic production of coatings; electroforming 30 3.03G01T Measurement of nuclear or x-radiation 12 3.00C08J Working-up general processes of compounding after- treatment not covered by subclasses 71 2.79C08K Use of inorganic or non-macromolecular organic 182 2.76B44C Producing decorative effects; mosaics; tarsia work; paperhanging 35 2.57

IPCClass

Class NameNumber of

PatentsAverage Number

of CitesG01B Measuring length, thickness, or similar linear dimensions measuring angles measuring

areas measuring irregularities of surfaces or contours87 0.39

H01J Electric discharge tubes or discharge lamps 119 0.37G03C Photography cinematography analogous techniques using waves other than optical waves

electrography holography19 0.32

G01R Measuring electric variables measuring magnetic variables 17 0.29B01F Mixing, e.g. dissolving, emulsifying, dispersing 17 0.24C09D 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 of73 0.23

C09B Organic dyes or closely-related compounds for producing dyes; mordants; lakes 13 0.23H01F Magnets inductances transformers selection of materials for their magnetic properties 51 0.20G11B Information storage based on relative movement between record carrier and transducer 57 0.18A61K Preparations for medical, dental, or toilet purposes 348 0.17

51

Findings - Average Number of Cites 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.


52

II. Content Map AnalysisII. Content Map Analysis

DocumentsDocuments Topic SimilarityTopic Similarity

Keyword ExtractionTopicsTopics VisualizationVisualization

Arizona NounPhraser

Arizona NounPhraser

Topic Relation Analysis

SOM AlgorithmSOM 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.

Content Map Analysis

53

Topic Map InterfaceTopic 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.


54

Content Map Analysis (USPTO)Content Map Analysis (USPTO)• USPTO Content Map (1976-1989) (“title-abstract” search)


55

Content Map Analysis (USPTO)Content Map Analysis (USPTO)

•USPTO Content Map (1990-1999) (“title-abstract” search)

•USPTO Content Map (2000-2004) (“title-abstract” search)


4.18 5.39 6.03 6.51 6.93 7.33 7.75 8.23 8.86 9.32 10.07 NEW REGION

-0.80 0.41 1.05 1.53 1.95 2.35 2.77 3.25 3.88 4.34 5.09 NEW REGION

56

Findings –Content Map (USPTO)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.”


57

Content Map Analysis (EPO)Content Map Analysis (EPO)

-1.88 -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 (1990-1999) (“title-abstract” search) •EPO Content Map (2000-2004) “title-abstract” search


58

Findings –Content Map (EPO)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.”


59

Content Map Analysis (JPO)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)


60

Findings –Content Map (JPO)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.”


61

Findings –Content MapFindings –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”).


62

III. Citation Network AnalysisIII. 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.

Citation Network Analysis

63

Citation Network Analysis- USPTO CountriesCitation Network Analysis- USPTO Countries


64

Citation Network Analysis- EPO CountriesCitation Network Analysis- EPO Countries


65

Findings – Country Citation Network 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.


66

Citation Network Analysis- USPTO InstitutionsCitation Network Analysis- USPTO Institutions


67

Citation Network Analysis- EPO InstitutionsCitation Network Analysis- EPO Institutions


68

Findings – Institution Citation NetworkFindings – 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.


69

Citation Network Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields (US class)Citation Network Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields (US class)


70

Citation Network Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields (IPC)Citation Network Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields (IPC)


71

Citation Network Analysis- EPO Technology Fields Citation Network Analysis- EPO Technology Fields


72

Findings – Technology Field Citation NetworkFindings – 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.”


73

Findings – Technology Field Citation Network (cont.)Findings – Technology Field Citation Network (cont.)

• In EPO, technology fields “H01J: Electric discharge tubes or discharge lamps,” “C08K: Use of inorganic or non-macromolecular 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.


74

ConclusionsConclusions

• 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.

Conclusions

75

ConclusionsConclusions

• 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 centers.

Conclusions

76

Future DirectionsFuture 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.

77

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