IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/infome/v13y2019i4s1751157719301191.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring the forward citation patterns of patents based on the evolution of technology fields

Author

Listed:
  • Jee, Su Jung
  • Kwon, Minji
  • Ha, Jung Moon
  • Sohn, So Young

Abstract

Forward citations of patents have been used extensively to capture the impact of technological knowledge. However, our understanding of the factors shaping patent citation patterns remains limited. One of the main limitations is the lack of scholarly attention paid to the dynamic influences arising from the evolution of technology fields. From an evolutionary perspective, technological impact is not simply determined by the static attributes of a technology itself; it is also dynamically affected by changes in the external conditions. Drawing on this viewpoint, this study suggests a model for understanding patent citation patterns by reflecting the evolution of the technology fields to which each patent belongs. Four such factors are explored: technology cycle time, potential of technological convergence, popularity of the technology field, and technological novelty. Based on the proposed model, we show how expected citation patterns can change as a result of different scenarios for technology field evolution. We conduct a case study of patents in the information technology and healthcare industries to show citation patterns of patents across heterogeneous industries as well as those within an industry. Contributions to the innovation literature and research investment decisions are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Jee, Su Jung & Kwon, Minji & Ha, Jung Moon & Sohn, So Young, 2019. "Exploring the forward citation patterns of patents based on the evolution of technology fields," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:13:y:2019:i:4:s1751157719301191
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2019.100985
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157719301191
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joi.2019.100985?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marco, Alan C., 2007. "The dynamics of patent citations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 290-296, February.
    2. Juan Alcácer & Michelle Gittelman, 2006. "Patent Citations as a Measure of Knowledge Flows: The Influence of Examiner Citations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 774-779, November.
    3. Belderbos, Rene & Carree, Martin & Lokshin, Boris, 2004. "Cooperative R&D and firm performance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(10), pages 1477-1492, December.
    4. Joshua Lerner, 1994. "The Importance of Patent Scope: An Empirical Analysis," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(2), pages 319-333, Summer.
    5. Hu, Mei-Chih & Mathews, John A., 2008. "China's national innovative capacity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 1465-1479, October.
    6. Zi-Lin He & Min Deng, 2007. "The evidence of systematic noise in non-patent references: A study of New Zealand companies’ patents," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 72(1), pages 149-166, July.
    7. Nelson,Richard R. & Dosi,Giovanni & Helfat,Constance E. & Pyka,Andreas & Saviotti,Pier Paolo & Lee,Keun, 2018. "Modern Evolutionary Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108427432, September.
      • Nelson,Richard R. & Dosi,Giovanni & Helfat,Constance E. & Pyka,Andreas & Saviotti,Pier Paolo & Lee,Keun, 2018. "Modern Evolutionary Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108446198, September.
    8. Park, Inchae & Yoon, Byungun, 2018. "Technological opportunity discovery for technological convergence based on the prediction of technology knowledge flow in a citation network," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 1199-1222.
    9. Bruce Kogut & Udo Zander, 1992. "Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(3), pages 383-397, August.
    10. Rosenberg, Nathan, 1963. "Technological Change in the Machine Tool Industry, 1840–1910," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(4), pages 414-443, December.
    11. Jean O. Lanjouw & Mark Schankerman, 1999. "The Quality of Ideas: Measuring Innovation with Multiple Indicators," NBER Working Papers 7345, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Karvonen, Matti & Kässi, Tuomo, 2013. "Patent citations as a tool for analysing the early stages of convergence," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 80(6), pages 1094-1107.
    13. Albert, M. B. & Avery, D. & Narin, F. & McAllister, P., 1991. "Direct validation of citation counts as indicators of industrially important patents," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 251-259, June.
    14. Gautam Ahuja & Curba Morris Lampert, 2001. "Entrepreneurship in the large corporation: a longitudinal study of how established firms create breakthrough inventions," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(6‐7), pages 521-543, June.
    15. Manuel Trajtenberg, 1990. "A Penny for Your Quotes: Patent Citations and the Value of Innovations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 172-187, Spring.
    16. Atul Nerkar & Srikanth Paruchuri, 2005. "Evolution of R&D Capabilities: The Role of Knowledge Networks Within a Firm," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(5), pages 771-785, May.
    17. Wang, Jian & Veugelers, Reinhilde & Stephan, Paula, 2017. "Bias against novelty in science: A cautionary tale for users of bibliometric indicators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1416-1436.
    18. Stolpe, Michael, 2002. "Determinants of knowledge diffusion as evidenced in patent data: the case of liquid crystal display technology," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 1181-1198, September.
    19. Dosi, Giovanni, 1993. "Technological paradigms and technological trajectories : A suggested interpretation of the determinants and directions of technical change," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 102-103, April.
    20. Nivedita Mukherji & Jonathan Silberman, 2013. "Absorptive Capacity, Knowledge Flows, And Innovation In U.S. Metropolitan Areas," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 392-417, August.
    21. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2005. "Market Value and Patent Citations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 16-38, Spring.
    22. Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg & Rebecca Henderson, 1993. "Geographic Localization of Knowledge Spillovers as Evidenced by Patent Citations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 577-598.
    23. Adam B. Jaffe & Gaétan de Rassenfosse, 2017. "Patent citation data in social science research: Overview and best practices," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 68(6), pages 1360-1374, June.
    24. Geert Duysters & John Hagedoorn, 1998. "Technological Convergence in the IT Industry: The Role of Strategic Technology Alliances and Technological Competencies," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 355-368.
    25. Lutgart Van den Berghe & Kurt Verweire, 2001. "Convergence in the Financial Services Industry*," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 26(2), pages 173-183, April.
    26. Tong, Xuesong & Frame, J. Davidson, 1994. "Measuring national technological performance with patent claims data," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 133-141, March.
    27. Verhoeven, Dennis & Bakker, Jurriën & Veugelers, Reinhilde, 2016. "Measuring technological novelty with patent-based indicators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 707-723.
    28. Dietmar Harhoff & Francis Narin & F. M. Scherer & Katrin Vopel, 1999. "Citation Frequency And The Value Of Patented Inventions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(3), pages 511-515, August.
    29. Tufool Alnuaimi & Gerard George, 2016. "Appropriability and the retrieval of knowledge after spillovers," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(7), pages 1263-1279, July.
    30. Branstetter, Lee G., 2001. "Are knowledge spillovers international or intranational in scope?: Microeconometric evidence from the U.S. and Japan," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 53-79, February.
    31. Manuel Trajtenberg & Adam B. Jaffe & Michael S. Fogarty, 2000. "Knowledge Spillovers and Patent Citations: Evidence from a Survey of Inventors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 215-218, May.
    32. Kim, Namil & Lee, Hyeokseong & Kim, Wonjoon & Lee, Hyunjong & Suh, Jong Hwan, 2015. "Dynamic patterns of industry convergence: Evidence from a large amount of unstructured data," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(9), pages 1734-1748.
    33. Hausman, Jerry & Hall, Bronwyn H & Griliches, Zvi, 1984. "Econometric Models for Count Data with an Application to the Patents-R&D Relationship," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(4), pages 909-938, July.
    34. Carpenter, Mark P. & Narin, Francis & Woolf, Patricia, 1981. "Citation rates to technologically important patents," World Patent Information, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 160-163, October.
    35. Yong-Gil Lee & Jeong-Dong Lee & Yong-Il Song & Se-Jun Lee, 2007. "An in-depth empirical analysis of patent citation counts using zero-inflated count data model: The case of KIST," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 70(1), pages 27-39, January.
    36. Birgitte Andersen, 1999. "The hunt for S-shaped growth paths in technological innovation: a patent study," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 487-526.
    37. Ray Reagans & Ezra W. Zuckerman, 2001. "Networks, Diversity, and Productivity: The Social Capital of Corporate R&D Teams," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(4), pages 502-517, August.
    38. Davies, Andrew, 1996. "Innovation in Large Technical Systems: The Case of Telecommunications," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 5(4), pages 1143-1180.
    39. Peter Thompson, 2006. "Patent Citations and the Geography of Knowledge Spillovers: Evidence from Inventor- and Examiner-added Citations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(2), pages 383-388, May.
    40. Strumsky, Deborah & Lobo, José, 2015. "Identifying the sources of technological novelty in the process of invention," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(8), pages 1445-1461.
    41. Fung, Michael K. & Chow, William W., 2002. "Measuring the intensity of knowledge flow with patent statistics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 353-358, February.
    42. Richard P. Nelson & Giovanni Dosi & Constance Helfat & Andreas Pyka & Pier-Paolo Saviotti & Keun Lee & Kurt Dopfer & Franco Malerba & Sidney Winter, 2018. "Modern evolutionary economics: an overview," Post-Print hal-02097506, HAL.
    43. Reitzig, Markus, 2003. "What determines patent value?: Insights from the semiconductor industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 13-26, January.
    44. Kim, Juram & Kim, Seungho & Lee, Changyong, 2019. "Anticipating technological convergence: Link prediction using Wikipedia hyperlinks," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 25-34.
    45. Belderbos, Rene & Carree, Martin & Lokshin, Boris, 2004. "Cooperative R&D and firm performance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(10), pages 1477-1492, December.
    46. Haupt, Reinhard & Kloyer, Martin & Lange, Marcus, 2007. "Patent indicators for the technology life cycle development," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 387-398, April.
    47. Chen, Lixin, 2017. "Do patent citations indicate knowledge linkage? The evidence from text similarities between patents and their citations," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 63-79.
    48. Belderbos, René & Cassiman, Bruno & Faems, Dries & Leten, Bart & Van Looy, Bart, 2014. "Co-ownership of intellectual property: Exploring the value-appropriation and value-creation implications of co-patenting with different partners," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(5), pages 841-852.
    49. Fischer, Timo & Leidinger, Jan, 2014. "Testing patent value indicators on directly observed patent value—An empirical analysis of Ocean Tomo patent auctions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 519-529.
    50. Lee Fleming, 2001. "Recombinant Uncertainty in Technological Search," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(1), pages 117-132, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lai, Kuei-Kuei & Bhatt, Priyanka C. & Kumar, Vimal & Chen, Hsueh-Chen & Chang, Yu-Hsin & Su, Fang-Pei, 2021. "Identifying the impact of patent family on the patent trajectory: A case of thin film solar cells technological trajectories," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2).
    2. Hötte, Kerstin & Jee, Su Jung, 2022. "Knowledge for a warmer world: A patent analysis of climate change adaptation technologies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    3. Ren, Haiying & Zhao, Yuhui, 2021. "Technology opportunity discovery based on constructing, evaluating, and searching knowledge networks," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    4. Bhatt, Priyanka C. & Lai, Kuei-Kuei & Drave, Vinayak A. & Lu, Tzu-Chuen & Kumar, Vimal, 2023. "Patent analysis based technology innovation assessment with the lens of disruptive innovation theory: A case of blockchain technological trajectories," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    5. Jeon, Eunji & Yoon, Naeun & Sohn, So Young, 2023. "Exploring new digital therapeutics technologies for psychiatric disorders using BERTopic and PatentSBERTa," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 186(PA).
    6. Yang, Guancan & Lu, Guoxuan & Xu, Shuo & Chen, Liang & Wen, Yuxin, 2023. "Which type of dynamic indicators should be preferred to predict patent commercial potential?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    7. Dejing Kong & Jianzhong Yang & Lingfeng Li, 2020. "Early identification of technological convergence in numerical control machine tool: a deep learning approach," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 1983-2009, December.
    8. Hou, Jianhua & Tang, Shiqi & Zhang, Yang & Song, Haoyang, 2023. "Does prior knowledge affect patent technology diffusion? A semantic-based patent citation contribution analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2).
    9. Mohd Shadab Danish & Pritam Ranjan & Ruchi Sharma, 2021. "Identification of “Valuable” Technologies via Patent Statistics in India: An Analysis Based on Renewal Information," BASE University Working Papers 13/2021, BASE University, Bengaluru, India.
    10. Mohd Shadab Danish & Pritam Ranjan & Ruchi Sharma, 2022. "Assessing the Impact of Patent Attributes on the Value of Discrete and Complex Innovations," Papers 2208.07222, arXiv.org.
    11. Su Jung Jee & So Young Sohn, 2023. "A firm’s creation of proprietary knowledge linked to the knowledge spilled over from its research publications: the case of artificial intelligence," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 32(4), pages 876-900.
    12. Liu, Weiwei & Tao, Yuan & Bi, Kexin, 2022. "Capturing information on global knowledge flows from patent transfers: An empirical study using USPTO patents," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(5).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jungpyo Lee & So Young Sohn, 2017. "What makes the first forward citation of a patent occur earlier?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(1), pages 279-298, October.
    2. Hur, Wonchang & Oh, Junbyoung, 2021. "A man is known by the company he keeps?: A structural relationship between backward citation and forward citation of patents," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1).
    3. Fernández, Ana María & Ferrándiz, Esther & Medina, Jennifer, 2022. "The diffusion of energy technologies. Evidence from renewable, fossil, and nuclear energy patents," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    4. Martin Kalthaus, 2020. "Knowledge recombination along the technology life cycle," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 643-704, July.
    5. Manuel Acosta & Daniel Coronado & Esther Ferrándiz & Manuel Jiménez, 2022. "Effects of knowledge spillovers between competitors on patent quality: what patent citations reveal about a global duopoly," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 1451-1487, October.
    6. Ron Boschma & Ernest Miguelez & Rosina Moreno & Diego B. Ocampo-Corrales, 2021. "Technological breakthroughs in European regions: the role of related and unrelated combinations," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2118, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jun 2021.
    7. Adam B. Jaffe & Gaétan de Rassenfosse, 2017. "Patent citation data in social science research: Overview and best practices," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 68(6), pages 1360-1374, June.
    8. Ahmad Barirani & Bruno Agard & Catherine Beaudry, 2013. "Discovering and assessing fields of expertise in nanomedicine: a patent co-citation network perspective," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(3), pages 1111-1136, March.
    9. Cammarano, Antonello & Michelino, Francesca & Lamberti, Emilia & Caputo, Mauro, 2017. "Accumulated stock of knowledge and current search practices: The impact on patent quality," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 204-222.
    10. Paul Almeida & Anupama Phene & Sali Li, 2015. "The Influence of Ethnic Community Knowledge on Indian Inventor Innovativeness," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(1), pages 198-217, February.
    11. Singh, Jasjit, 2008. "Distributed R&D, cross-regional knowledge integration and quality of innovative output," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 77-96, February.
    12. Capponi, Giovanna & Martinelli, Arianna & Nuvolari, Alessandro, 2022. "Breakthrough innovations and where to find them," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(1).
    13. Dirk Fornahl & Nils Grashof & Alexander Kopka, 2021. "Do not neglect the periphery?! - the emergence and diffusion of radical innovations," Bremen Papers on Economics & Innovation 2102, University of Bremen, Faculty of Business Studies and Economics.
    14. Feng Zhang & Guohua Jiang, 2019. "Combination of Complementary Technological Knowledge to Generate “Hard to Imitate” Technologies," Journal of Information & Knowledge Management (JIKM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 18(02), pages 1-24, June.
    15. Jurriën Bakker & Dennis Verhoeven & Lin Zhang & Bart Van Looy, 2016. "Patent citation indicators: One size fits all?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(1), pages 187-211, January.
    16. Barbieri, Nicolò & Marzucchi, Alberto & Rizzo, Ugo, 2020. "Knowledge sources and impacts on subsequent inventions: Do green technologies differ from non-green ones?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(2).
    17. Michele Cincera & Ela Ince, 2019. "Types of Innovation and Firm performance," Working Papers TIMES² 2019-032, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    18. Keijl, S. & Gilsing, V.A. & Knoben, J. & Duysters, G., 2016. "The two faces of inventions: The relationship between recombination and impact in pharmaceutical biotechnology," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(5), pages 1061-1074.
    19. Kok, Holmer & Faems, Dries & de Faria, Pedro, 2020. "Ties that matter: The impact of alliance partner knowledge recombination novelty on knowledge utilization in R&D alliances," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(7).
    20. William Arant & Dirk Fornahl & Nils Grashof & Kolja Hesse & Cathrin Söllner, 2019. "University-industry collaborations—The key to radical innovations? [Universität-Industrie-Kooperationen – Der Schlüssel zu radikalen Innovationen?]," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 39(2), pages 119-141, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:13:y:2019:i:4:s1751157719301191. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joi .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.