China’s technological performance as reflected in patents

Various concepts for the comparison of countries by patent indicators have been developed for the comparison of countries based on patent indicators. These concepts are generally based on the application of patents in several important markets or the family size of patent applications. A specific observation is the limited transfer of PCT applications of Chinese origin, affecting all these concepts. Transnational patents prove to be a convenient and appropriate tool for making country comparisons by technology, particularly with respect to adequately consider China’s specific patent behaviour. Therefore the phenomenon of limited transfer of China’s PCT applications is analysed for transnational patents. This observation can be associated with lower patent values or with a decreasing export dynamic. The Chinese transfer rates vary considerably by technology as well as by the reason for lower transfer rates. It proves to be more adequate to take limited transfer rates into account.

The Financial Impact of Patents on SMEs in China: Empirical Evidence from Pharmaceutical Sector

With the disruptive technology innovation time arrival, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been the motor of innovation and played an increasingly major role in national economic development. As the shift towards an ‘open innovation’ paradigm, awareness of intellectual property rights has increased, and patents have been an important tool for Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises. Considering its mass production of low-level generic drugs, there are still many arguments about its lack of innovation. This article aims to identify if and how patents, as essential indicators of innovation, generate financial performance measured by SMEs in the pharmaceutical sectors. Patent data are a vital source of competitive intelligence. A positive association was found between annually added patents and gross sales. Many other patent indicators, such as the number of forward citations and patent transfer, were statistically significant. Moreover, the results suggested that there was a one-year lag between patent publication and financial performance. A series of patent quantity and quality indicators have shown significant effects on the financial performance of Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises. These patents generate a positive financial impact, which builds up a solid basis for keeping sustainable innovation capability in the Chinese drug industry.

AI Technology Application in Medical Care of NSCLC Based on Patent Trend Analysis

The patent trend analysis provides sound knowledge about the possibility of exploring potential innovation/R&D and gives an insight into which countries and companies are mostly investing in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies involved with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) medical care. By comparing patent indicators changes of two decades from 2001 to 2020, the most active countries and companies are identified to provide perceptions of global patent variations. In line with this, we apply a comprehensive software INNOVUE to analyze the patent trend based on the Worldwide Patent Office database. According to previous research, 315 patents are selected as the appropriate patent analysis data. The analysis result is a series of trend maps that show the trend of patent development from the early stage to current changes. This study findings evaluate government’s/company’s concern and motivation about the investment in R&D capability of AI technology related patents, and indicate who plays the main role around the world regarding the application of AI combined with NSCLC medical treatment. JEL classification numbers: C80, D81, E27. Keywords: Patent trend analysis, Artificial intelligence technologies, NSCLC.

Desenvolvimento tecnológico da biotecnologia para a saúde no Brasil

Objective of the study: This study aims to analyze the technological development of health biotechnology in Brazil in the period from 2007 to 2016.Methodology: The research methodology was based on a quantitative approach with the application of statistical methods aligned with patent analysis. Data collection was carried out on the institutional page of the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI). The health biotechnology patents were classified according to the definitions presented by the Biotechnology Development Policy (PDB).Originality/Relevance: This study brings new contributions to the literature on the technological development of biotechnology when dealing with the sectoral level.Main results: The results obtained showed a total of 503 patents granted, with applications that mostly involve human health (70%). The development of drugs for the treatment of metabolic or endocrinological diseases is notorious, while vaccines have greater applications in the prevention of veterinary diseases. Also, patent ownership belongs mostly to large companies in developed countries.Theoretical/methodological contributions: The study deepened the understanding of the technological development of biotechnology in Brazil using patent indicators and allowed us to understand this dynamic in the sectorial context involving health.Social/managerial contributions: The statistics of patents in health biotechnology can assist policymakers in practices aimed at promoting research, development, and innovation activities with applications in health.

Patent Quality: Towards a Systematic Framework for Analysis and Measurement

The ‘quality’ of novel technological innovations is extremely variable, and the ability to measure innovation quality is essential to sensible, evidence-based policy. Patents, an often vital precursor to a commercialised innovation, share this heterogeneous quality distribution. A pertinent question then arises: How should we define and measure patent quality? Accepting that different stakeholders have different views of this concept, we take a multi-dimensional view of patent quality in this work. We first test the consistency of popular post-grant outcomes that are often used as patent quality measures. Finding these measures to be generally inconsistent, we then use a raft of patent indicators that are defined at the time of grant to dissect the characteristics associated with different post-grant outcomes. We find broad disagreement in the relative importance of individual characteristics between outcomes and, further, significant variation of the same across technologies within outcomes. We conclude that measurement of patent quality is highly sensitive to both stakeholder viewpoint and technology type. Our findings bear implications for scholarly research using patent data as well as for policy discussions about patent quality.

Identifying Emerging Technologies with Smart Patent Indicators: The Example of Smart Houses

Patent information plays a key role in technology intelligence. As granted patent rights provide temporary exclusivity to commercialize inventions, emerging technologies are marked by brisk increases in patenting, revealing patent-based information as sources for corporate technology intelligence. In this paper, I analyze one such emerging technology, smart houses, which refers to connected and centrally controlled everyday household solutions. I provide a detailed technology landscape study that tracks longitudinal patenting changes in the technology during the 18-year period from 2000 to 2017. Central to the analyses is the use of smart indicators and longitudinal annual data, allowing tracking changes over time. The analyses encompass general patenting trends in the technology of smart houses, including the detection of key players, pertinent technology class developments, and most relevant countries for the technology of smart houses. The case study results indicate that the use of smart indicators and longitudinal data supplements established patent indicators in technology intelligence by providing additional insights to the emergence of new technologies that cannot be detected by conventional measures.

Neuro-Fuzzy Approach for Technology Strategic Planning

In the chapter, a neuro-fuzzy-based technology strategic planning model is suggested. It is the result of an integrated and systematic hybrid of existing models presented in the literature of technology strategy planning and hybrid intelligent strategic planning. The neuro-fuzzy technique is used for modeling of technology strategies with MATLAB. The model is evaluated in Iran's petrochemical industry based on average test error and average train error which were satisfying. A list of technologies in the industry, the industry's ability in the development of technology, the attractiveness of technology in the industry, and patent indicators are identified based on experts' viewpoints. According to the location of technologies in decision matrices of technology strategies, technology strategies are proposed in three categories: research-driven, investment-driven, and knowledge-driven. Data is collected by the researchers in subsidiary companies who do research in specific fields of petrochemical industry and have the knowledge in those fields.