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

1
Worldwide Nanotechnology Development A
Comparative Study of USPTO, EPO, and JPO Patents

• Xin Li Yiling Lin
• Hsinchun Chen
• Dec 2006

2
Outline

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

3
Introduction
Introduction

• Nanotechnology
• A fundamental technology.
• Critical for a nations technological competence.
  
• Revolutionizes a wide range of application
  domains.
• Its RD status attracts various communities
  interest.
• Patent analysis has been widely used to assess a
  fields 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 Foundations funding on
  nanotechnology patents.

4
Introduction
Introduction

• 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.

5
Our Research
Introduction

• 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.

6
Patent Analysis
Background and Research Objectives

• 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)

7
Patent Offices in the World
Background and Research Objectives

• 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
  worlds 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.

8
Three Major Patent Offices
Background and Research Objectives

• 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_at_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.

9
Patent Offices Effect
Background and Research Objectives

• 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.

10
Patent Offices Effect (cont.)
Background and Research Objectives

• 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).

11
Utilizing Different Patent Offices Repositories
Background and Research Objectives

• To obtain a comprehensive understanding of a
  technology areas development, it is necessary to
  study the patents filed in different patent
  offices repositories.

12
Utilizing Different Patent Offices Repositories
Background and Research Objectives

• 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.

13
Research Gap
Background and Research Objectives

• Few studies employ multiple repositories to
  reveal the nanotechnology fields RD status.
• Results of past patent analysis studies may be
  biased by the characteristics of different
  databases.

14
Research Objectives
Background and Research 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.

15
Research Design
Research Design
We develope a framework to assess the RD status
of a a science and engineering domain based on
the patents in the three repositories USPTO,
EPO, and JPO.
USPTO dataset
Patent parsing
Data acquisition
Research status analysis
USPTO database
Number of patents
Patent publication
Collected by keywords
EPO dataset
Average number of cites
Patent importance/ strength of a repository
EPO database
EPOJPO patent
Collected by keywords
Topic coverage
Content map
JPO patent
JPO dataset
Citation Network
Knowledge diffusion
Patent status
JPO database
Patent statuschecking
16
Research Design
Research 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) .

17
Data Acquisition
Research Design

• 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_at_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_at_cenet.
• Need to use the PAJ database to differentiate
  granted patents from patent applications.

18
Research Status Analysis
Research Design

• We assess a fields 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

19
Data Limitations
Research Design

• 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.

20
Analysis Performed
Research Design
21
Data Collection
Dataset

• 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_at_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.

22
Data USPTO Patents
Dataset

• 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.

23
Data USPTO Patents (cont.)
Dataset

• Top 20 nanotechnology patent assignees (with
  average patent age) and countries based on
  title-abstract search of patents published from
  1976 to 2004

24
Data EPO Patents
Dataset

• EPO nanotechnology patent collected by
  title-abstract search in esp_at_cenet.
• 2,328 EPO patents were collected.
• Submitted by 1,168 assignee institutions, 5,400
  inventors, and 43 countries.

25
Data EPO Patents (cont.)
Dataset

• Top 20 nanotechnology patent assignees (with
  average patent age) and countries based on
  title-abstract search of patents published from
  1978 to 2004

26
Data JPO Patents
Dataset

• JPO patent collection
• The patents collected by title-abstract search
  in esp_at_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.

27
Data JPO Patents (cont.)
Dataset

• Top 20 nanotechnology patent assignees based on
  title-abstract search of patents published from
  1976 to 2004

28
Data USPTO, EPO, and JPO Patents
Dataset

• The numbers of nanotechnology patents published
  in USPTO, EPO and JPO by year (log scale)

• 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.

29
I. Basic Analysis- USPTO Patents by Country
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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.

30
Basic Analysis- EPO Patents by Country
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• Top 20 nanotechnology patent assignee countries
  in EPO (title-abstract search) and their
  patents by year, 1978-2004 (log scale)

• 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.

31
Basic Analysis- USPTO Patents by Country Group
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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.

32
Basic Analysis- EPO Patents by Country Group
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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.

33
Findings - Patents by Country and Country Group
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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.

34
Basic Analysis- USPTO Patents by Assignee
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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.

35
Basic Analysis- EPO Patents by Assignee
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

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

• 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.

36
Basic Analysis- JPO Patents by Assignee
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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.

37
Findings - Patents by Assignee
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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 Bibliographic Analysis

• Top 10 technology fields according to the number
  of patents published between 1976 and 2004 based
  on US Class (title-abstract search)

39
Basic Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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 257Active solid-state devices
  experienced a rapid growth since 1999.

40
Basic Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• Top 10 technology fields according to the number
  of patents published between 1976 and 2004 based
  on IPC (title-abstract search)

• 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 Fields
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

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

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

42
Basic Analysis- EPO Technology Fields
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• Top 10 technology fields according to the number
  of patents published between 1978 and 2004
  (title-abstract search)

43
Basic Analysis- EPO Technology Fields
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• Top 10 technology fields by year (1978-2004)
  (title-abstract search)

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

44
Basic Analysis- JPO Technology Fields
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• Top 10 technology fields according to the number
  of patents published between 1976 and 2004
  (title-abstract search)

45
Basic Analysis- JPO Technology Fields
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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.

46
Summary USPTO/EPTO/JPO Technology Fields
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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.

47
Findings - Technology Fields
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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 Country
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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)

49
Basic Analysis- Average Number of Cites by
Assignee Institution
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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)

50
Basic Analysis- Average Number of Cites by
Technology Field
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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)

51
Findings - Average Number of Cites
Basic Bibliographic Analysis

• 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 Analysis
Content Map Analysis
Documents
Topic Similarity
Visualization
Topics
Topic Relation Analysis
Keyword Extraction
Arizona NounPhraser
SOM 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.

53
Topic Map Interface
Content Map Analysis

• 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 Content Map (1976-1989) (title-abstract
  search)

55
Content Map Analysis (USPTO)
Content Map Analysis
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

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

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

56
Findings Content Map (USPTO)
Content Map Analysis

• 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
-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)
Content Map Analysis

• 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
-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)
Content Map Analysis

• 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 Map
Content Map Analysis

• 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 Analysis
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 ATT Labs (Gansner and North, 2000)
  (available at http//www.research.att.com/sw/tool
  s/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 As patents cited country Bs
  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.

63
Citation Network Analysis- USPTO Countries
Citation Network Analysis
64
Citation Network Analysis- EPO Countries
Citation Network Analysis
65
Findings Country Citation Network
Citation Network Analysis

• 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 Institutions
Citation Network Analysis
67
Citation Network Analysis- EPO Institutions
Citation Network Analysis
68
Findings Institution Citation Network
Citation Network Analysis

• 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
70
Citation Network Analysis- USPTO Technology
Fields (IPC)
Citation Network Analysis
71
Citation Network Analysis- EPO Technology Fields
Citation Network Analysis
72
Findings Technology Field Citation Network
Citation Network Analysis

• 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.)
Citation Network Analysis

• 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
Conclusions
Conclusions

• 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.

75
Conclusions
Conclusions

• The top assignee institutions are quite different
  in USPTO, EPO, and JPO. However, IBM and
  LOreal 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.

76
Future 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
References

• Bacchiocchi, E. and F. Montobbio (2004). "EPO vs.
  USPTO citation lags." Working Paper CESPRI 161.
• Balconi, M., et al. (2004a). "Networks of
  inventors and the role of academia an
  exploration of Italian patent data." Research
  Policy 33(1) 127-145.
• Balconi, M. and A. Laboranti (2004b). The
  multidimensionality of the academic performance
  in the applied sciences end engineering evidence
  from a case study, Università di Pavia.
• Criscuolo, P. (2005). "The 'home advantage'
  effect and patent families. A comparison of OECD
  triadic patents, the USPTO and the EPO."
  Scientometrics 66(1) 23-41.
• European Commission (1997). Second European
  Report on ST Indicators. Bruxelles, European
  Commission.
• Ganguli, P. (1998). "Intellectual property rights
  in transition." World Patent Information 20
  171-80.
• Huang, Z., et al. (2003a). "Longitudinal patent
  analysis for Nanoscale Science and Engineering
  Country, institution and technology field."
  Journal of Nanoparticale Research 5 333-363.
• Huang, M. H., et al. (2003b). "Constructing a
  patent citation map using bibliographic coupling
  A study of Taiwan's high-tech companies."
  Scientometrics 58(3) 489-506.
• Huang, Z., et al. (2004). "International
  Nanotechnology Development in 2003 Country,
  Institution, and Technology Field Analysis Based
  on USPTO Patent Database." Journal of
  Nanoparticale Research 6(4) 325-354.

78
References

• Huang, Z., et al. (2005). "Longitudinal
  nanotechnology development (1991-2002) National
  Science Foundation funding and its impact on
  patents." Journal of Nanoparticle Research 7
  343-376.
• Hullmann, A. and M. Meyer (2003). "Publications
  and patents in nanotechnology - An overview of
  previous studies and the state of the art."
  Scientometrics 58(3) 507-527.
• Karki, M. M. (1997). "Patent citation analysis a
  policy analysis tool." World Patent Information
  19 269-272.
• Kowalski, T. J., et al. (2003). "Dominating
  global intellectual property Overview of
  patentability in the USA, Europe and Japan."
  Journal of Commercial Biotechnology 9(4)
  305-331.
• Lewison, G. (1998). "Gastroenterology research in
  the United Kingdom funding sources and impact."
  Gut 43(2) 288-293.
• Lukach, R. and J. Plasmans (2001). A Study of
  Knowledge Spill-overs from the Compatible EPO and
  USPTO Patent Datasets for Belgian Companies.
  Belgian Report on Science, Technology and
  Innovation 2001 - Volume II The Belgian
  Innovation System Lessons and Challenges. M. C.
  a. B. Clarysse, Federal Office for Scientific,
  Technical and Cultural Affairs 241-267.
• Meyer, M. S. (2001). "Patent citation analysis in
  a novel field of technology An exploration of
  nano-science and nano-technology." Scientometrics
  51(1) 163-183.
• Narin, F. (1994). "Patent Bibliometrics."
  Scientometrics 30(1) 147-155.
• Oppenheim, C. (2000). Do Patent Citations Count?
  The Web of knowledge. B. Cromin and H. B. Atkins.
  Medford, Information Today, Inc. 405-432.
• Quillen, C. D., et al. (2002). "Continuing Patent
  Applications and Performance of the U.S. Patent
  and Trademark Office - Extended." The Federal
  Circuit Bar Journal 12(1) 35-55.