Determining the Life Cycle Phase of a Technology Based on Patent Data

Abstract

Developing new technologies is one of the most important goals of today's scientific and industrial research. Understanding how technology evolves, as well as its current state, is invaluable in an ecosystem where technology is evolving at an increasingly rapid pace. In this paper, patent data is used to determine a technology's life cycle. Two patent maps are created, one based on patent citations and one based on keywords. The citation patent map visualizes how patents cite each other, while the keyword patent maps visualize keywords used to describe patents and their relations. Both of these patent maps are dynamic, meaning they change over time thus giving insight into an examined technology's evolution. A growth analysis of both networks is conducted as well as a degree distribution analysis. Both of these analyses are used to help determine the technology's lifecycle phase as well as its patterns of growth. This insight is invaluable to stakeholders tasked to make strategic decisions related to technology development.

Exploring knowledge flow within a technology domain by conducting a dynamic analysis of a patent co-citation network

“…The methodology outlined by Cash et al (2014) is used to conduct a dynamic analysis of the citation network to determine the life cycle phases of the examined technology domain as outlined by Smojver et al, 2019. This methodology consists of conducting a dynamic growth analysis that provides insight into the examined networks formation and growth dynamics.…”

“…Figure 1 Overview of the presented methodology result of this analysis is a chart that enables the identification of life cycle phases (Smojver et al, 2019). A positive trend in the growth analysis corresponds to a phase where more nodes than edges are added to the network.…”

“…Thus, the citation network is generated and continuously recalculated whenever a new cited patent is added as a node or edge connection. This enables the creation of a visualization Figure 2 Technology life cycle curve based on the growth analysis of a citation knowledge network (Smojver et al, 2019) of the network growth over time, illustrating the evolution of the network as new knowledge containers (in this case cited patents) are added. Figure 2 shows a generalized visualization (Smojveret al, 2019) of the results of a dynamic growth analysis of a mature technology's citation network, with the life cycle phases marked.…”

“…A life cycle analysis was performed on the patent citation network, based on the work of Smojver et al (2019), which shows that the life cycle phases of a mature technology can be identified by conducting a dynamic analysis on a patent citation network. For the purpose of the study, the patent citation network is generated and continuously recalculated after the addition of each new node and link.…”

Models of Interdependent Equations of Patents from Expenditures and Employees in Research and Development from European Union Countries with Different Levels of Innovation

“…A higher level of expenditure on R&D ensures an increase in the number of new innovative products and their profitability (Sudolska, Łopińska 2020; Artz et al 2010). On the basis of patent maps created, technologies were identified as a state of some stagnation (phase) (Smojver et al 2019). The patent is an indicator of technology innovation in countries.…”