Worldwide Nanotechnology Development: A Comparative Study of USPTO, EPO, and JPO Patents Artificial Intelligence Lab Department of Management Information Systems University of Arizona May 2006

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

3 Introduction Nanotechnology –A fundamental technology. –Critical for a nation’s technological competence. –Revolutionizes a wide range of application domains. –Its R&D status attracts various communities’ interest. Patent analysis has been widely used to assess a field’s 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 NSE field. –(Huang et al., 2005) studied the impact of National Science Foundation’s funding on NSE patents.

4 Our Research Our research focuses on the NSE field and is a comparative study of NSE patents filed in USPTO, EPO, and JPO. –The NSE research in German, P. R. China, South Korea, and France are also very active. Their patent offices documented many NSE 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.

5 Patent Offices in the World 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 world’s patents (Kowalski et al., 2003). –In the NSE 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.

6 Background 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. –NSE patents represent the fastest growing technology field in the USPTO patent database since the1990s (Huang et al., 2003a). 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, 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.

7 Utilizing Different Patent Offices’ Repositories To obtain a comprehensive understanding of a technology area’s development, it is necessary to study the patents filed in different patent offices’ repositories.

8 Research Objectives Assess the NSE development status represented by USPTO, EPO, and JPO patents. Compare and contrast the differences in the NSE patents in the three repositories.

9 Patent parsing Research Design Data acquisition USPTO database USPTO database Research status analysis Topic coverage Collected by keywords Content map Citation Network Patent publication Patent importance/ strength of a repository Patent importance/ strength of a repository Number of patents Average number of cites EPO database EPO database JPO database JPO database Knowledge diffusion Collected by keywords JPO dataset EPO dataset USPTO dataset Patent status checking EPO+JPO patent JPO patent Patent status We developed a framework to assess the R&D status of the NSE field based on the patents in the three repositories: USPTO, EPO, and JPO.

10 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

11 Data Acquisition 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 The patents can be searched using almost all the data fields of a patent. –EPO provides online title-abstract access to EPO patents issued since 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 The PAJ database is difficult to spider. But its patents and patent applications can be searched from Need to use the PAJ database to differentiate patents from patent applications.

12 Research Status Analysis We assess a field’s research status using the following indicators. Patent publication –Number of patents by country in each year –Number of patents by country group in each year –Number of patents by assignee in each year –Number of patents by technology field in each year Patent importance / strength –Average number of cites by country –Average number of cites by assignee –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

13 Analysis Performed USPTOEPOJPO Patent publication Number of patents by country in each year  Number of patents by country group in each year  Number of patents by assignee in each year  Number of patents by technology field in each year  Patent importance / strength of a repository Average number of cites by country  Average number of cites by assignee  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 

14 Data: USPTO Patents USPTO NSE patent collection –Used an NSE keyword list to search patent title, abstract, and claim (“title-claims” search) in USPTO database (Huang et al., 2003). –13,469 patents were collected. –Submitted by 4,807 assignees, 19,716 inventors and 57 countries.

15 Data: USPTO Patents (cont.) Top 20 NSE assignees and countries based on “title- claims” search of patents published from 1976 to 2004

16 Data: EPO Patents EPO NSE patent collection –Used an NSE keyword list to search patent title and abstract (“title-abstract” search) in –2,597 EPO patents were collected. –Submitted by 1,393 assignees, 5,905 inventors and 44 countries.

17 Data: EPO Patents (cont.) Top 20 NSE assignees and countries based on “title- abstract” search of patents published from 1979 to 2004 OREAL=L’OREAL (a French cosmetic composition company)

18 Data: JPO Patents JPO patent collection –Used an NSE keyword list to search patent title and abstract (“title-abstract” search) in which contains both JPO patent applications and JPO registered patents. –The patent application ID was used to retrieve the patent status from the JPO database. –1,027 JPO registered patents were collected. –Submitted by 419 assignees, 1,960 inventors.

19 Data: JPO Patents (cont.) Top 20 NSE assignees based on “title-abstract” search of patents published from 1976 to 2004

20 Data: USPTO, EPO, and JPO Patents The numbers of NSE patents published in USPTO and EPO continually increase. After 1993, the number of NSE patents published in JPO becomes stable. (USPTO by “title-claims” search; EPO and JPO by “title-abstract” search)

21 Analysis USPTOEPOJPO Patent publication Number of patents by country in each year  Number of patents by country group in each year  Number of patents by assignee in each year  Number of patents by technology field in each year  Patent importance / strength of a repository Average number of cites by country  Average number of cites by assignee  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 

22 Basic Analysis- USPTO Patents by Country Top 20 NSE assignee countries in USPTO (“title-claims” search) and their patents by year, The United States filed more NSE patents than other countries in the USPTO database. USPTO: Country

23 Top 20 NSE assignee countries (without U.S.) in USPTO (“title-claims” search) and their patents by year, Basic Analysis- USPTO Patents by Country There is an increasing trend of the number of NSE patents published by most countries. Between 2002 and 2004, the number of NSE patents published by France experienced a decrease. USPTO: Country

24 Basic Analysis- EPO Patents by Country The United States filed more NSE patents than other countries in the EPO database. After 2000, the US and Japan NSE patents experienced a rapid growth in the EPO database. Top 20 NSE assignee countries in EPO (“title-abstract” search) and their patents by year, EPO: Country

25 Top 20 NSE assignee countries (without U.S.) in EPO (“title-abstract” search) and their patents by year, Basic Analysis- EPO Patents by Country EPO: Country

26 Basic Analysis- USPTO Patents by Country Group Assignee country group analysis by year, (“title-claims” search) The European Group, Japan, and the Others Group, which contains all the other countries, have similar numbers of NSE patents in USPTO database. The US has many more NSE patents than the other three groups in USPTO. USPTO: Country Group

27 Basic Analysis- EPO Patents by Country Group Assignee country group analysis by year, (“title-abstract” search) The US and the European Group have similar numbers of NSE patents in the EPO database. The Others Group and Japan have similar numbers of NSE patents in EPO. EPO: Country Group

28 Basic Analysis- USPTO Patents by Assignee Top 10 NSE assignees in USPTO (“title-claims” search) and their patents by year, All the top assignees are US companies/institutions. IBM and Xerox were issued the greatest number of patents. The top 10 NSE assignees’ patents experienced a steady increase in these years. USPTO: Assignee

29 Basic Analysis- EPO Patents by Assignee OREAL is a French cosmetic composition company. ROHM & HAAS is a special material company. Samsung’s patents steadily increased after The top 10 assignees consisted of companies/ institutions from the US, Korea, Japan, etc. Even the top 10 assignees did not file a lot of patents in the EPO database. Top 10 NSE assignees in EPO (“title-abstract” search) and their patents by year, EPO: Assignee

30 Basic Analysis- JPO Patents by Assignee Top 10 NSE assignees in JPO (“title-abstract” search) and their patents by year, Most of the top assignees were Japanese companies/ institutions. JPO: Assignee

31 Basic Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields Top 10 technology fields according to the number of patents published between 1976 and 2004 based on US Class (“title-claims” search) USPTO: Technology Field

32 Basic Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields Top 10 US classification technology fields by year ( ) (“title- claims” search) The numbers of patents in the top 10 technology fields have been increasing. Some technology fields, such as “257: Active solid-state devices (e.g., transistors, solid-state diodes),” “438: Semiconductor device manufacturing: process,” “428: Stock material or miscellaneous articles,” and “427: Coating processes,” experienced a significant growth since 1997 USPTO: Technology Field

33 Basic Analysis- EPO Technology Fields Top 10 technology fields according to the number of patents published between 1979 and 2004 (“title-abstract” search) EPO: Technology Field

34 Basic Analysis- EPO Technology Fields Top 10 technology fields by year ( ) (“title-abstract” search) EPO and USPO have the same top 3 technology fields (in IPC classification). The technology fields A61K: Preparations for medical, dental, or toilet purposes,” “H01L: Semiconductor devices; electric solid state devices,” “C01B: Non- metallic elements; compounds thereof,” “C08K: Use of inorganic or non-macromolecular organic substances as compounding ingredients,” and “B01J:Chemical or physical processes, e.g. catalysis, colloid chemistry; their relevant apparatus” all experienced a steady increase in recent years. EPO: Technology Field

35 Basic Analysis- JPO Technology Fields Top 10 technology fields according to the number of patents published between 1976 and 2004 (“title-abstract” search) JPO: Technology Field

36 Basic Analysis- JPO Technology Fields Top 10 technology fields by year ( ) (“title-abstract” search) The top 3 technology fields (in IPC classification) in USPO also show up in the JPO top 10 list, but not the top 3. EPO and JPO share many common technology fields among the top 10. While many of the other technology fields experienced a decrease in recent years, technology field “C01B: Non-metallic elements; compounds thereof,” still kept a steady publication trend. JPO: Technology Field

37 Analysis USPTOEPOJPO Patent publication Number of patents by country in each year  Number of patents by country group in each year  Number of patents by assignee in each year  Number of patents by technology field in each year  Patent importance / strength of a repository Average number of cites by country  Average number of cites by assignee  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 

38 Basic Analysis- Average Number of Cites by Country USPTO top 10 countries with more than 20 patents based on the average number of cites measure ( ) (“title- claims” search) EPO top 10 countries with more than 20 patents based on the average number of cites measure ( ) (“title- abstract” search) USPTO/EPO: Average Cites by Country

39 Basic Analysis- Average Number of Cites by Assignee USPTO top 10 assignees with more than 40 patents based on the average number of cites measure ( ) (“title-claims” search) EPO top 10 assignees based with more than 15 on the average number of cites measure ( ) (“title-abstract” search) USPTO/EPO: Average Cites by Assignee

40 Basic Analysis- Average Number of Cites by Technology Field USPTO top 10 technology fields with more than 40 patents based on the average number of cites measure ( ) (“title-claims” search) EPO top 10 technology fields with more than 15 patents based on the average number of cites measure ( ) (“title-abstract” search) USPTO/EPO: Average Cites by Tech Field

41 Analysis USPTOEPOJPO Patent publication Number of patents by country in each year  Number of patents by country group in each year  Number of patents by assignee in each year  Number of patents by technology field in each year  Patent importance / strength of a repository Average number of cites by country  Average number of cites by assignee  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 

42 Content Map Analysis Documents Topic Similarity Keyword Extraction Topics Visualization Arizona Noun Phraser Topic Relation Analysis 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.

43 Content Map Analysis (USPTO) USPTO Content Map ( ) (“title-claims” search) USPTO: Content Map

44 Content Map Analysis (USPTO) NEW REGION USPTO Content Map ( ) (“title-claims” search) NEW REGION USPTO Content Map ( ) (“title-claims” search) USPTO: Content Map ;

45 Content Map Analysis (EPO) EPO Content Map ( ) (“title-abstract” search) EPO: Content Map

46 Content Map Analysis (EPO) NEW REGION NEW REGION EPO Content Map ( ) (“title-abstract” search) EPO Content Map ( ) “title-abstract” search EPO: Content Map ;

47 Content Map Analysis (JPO) JPO Content Map ( ) (“title-abstract” search) JPO: Content Map

48 Content Map Analysis (JPO) NEW REGION NEW REGION JPO Content Map ( ) (“title-abstract” search) JPO Content Map ( ) (“title-abstract” search) JPO: Content Map ;

49 Analysis USPTOEPOJPO Patent publication Number of patents by country in each year  Number of patents by country group in each year  Number of patents by assignee in each year  Number of patents by technology field in each year  Patent importance / strength of a repository Average number of cites by country  Average number of cites by assignee  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 

50 Citation Network Analysis- USPTO Countries (by “title-claims” search) USPTO: Country Citation

51 Citation Network Analysis- EPO Countries (by “title-abstract” search) EPO: Country Citation

52 Citation Network Analysis- USPTO Institutions (by “title-claims” search) USPTO: Institution Citation

53 Citation Network Analysis- EPO Institutions (by “title-abstract” search) EPO: Institution Citation

54 Citation Network Analysis- USPTO Technology Fields (US class) (by “title-claims” search) USPTO: Tech Field Citation

55 Citation Network Analysis- EPO Technology Fields (by “title-abstract” search) EPO: Tech Field Citation

56 Conclusions 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. –Many of the EPO topics were related to physics research. –USPTO topics covered research in physics, biomedicine, and electronics. The USPTO repository and EPO repository have different focuses and strengths in different technology fields, in terms of the cites per patent measure. In the institution citation network, USPTO institutions have more self-citations than EPO institutions.

57 Analysis Performed USPTOEPOJPO Patent publication Number of patents by country in each year  Number of patents by country group in each year  Number of patents by assignee in each year  Number of patents by technology field in each year  Patent importance / strength of a repository Average number of cites by country  Average number of cites by assignee  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 