Digital Twin and Medical Devices: Technological Significance of Convergent Inventions

Technological change may impose turmoil on established markets and industries. Digital technology convergence processes are a subject of uncertainty from the industry and business perspective. Using the absorptive capacity as a facilitator of technological innovation capacity, the study aims to shed new light on the understanding of digital and medical technologies’ convergence. In this study, Medical Devices (MD) and Digital Twin (DT) – a virtual representation of physical objects – are used to illustrate technological significance of convergent MD-DT inventions. The study aims to analyze whether invention convergence is a valid predictor of technological significance as well as whether this relationship is moderated by the mode of invention development, i.e. collaboration (multiple applicants) vs non-collaboration (single applicant) pattern. This research is based on a statistical analysis of output-based measures – more than 44.5 thousand patent data records acquired from four patent offices (USPTO in USA, EPO in Europe, JPO in Japan and CNIPA in China). Quantitative patent data analysis reveals that the blend of MD–DT technologies is remarkably more technologically significant compared to non-convergent inventions. Overall results of the research suggest possible future directions for information technology arena.