Over the years, people have continuously explored patent analysis methods and looked for better analysis indicators, so that the analysis methods and indicator systems have become increasingly perfect. Foreign patent analysis methods and indicators can better objectively evaluate patent data, fully tap into the strategic competitive intelligence, and provide valuable reference for corporate strategic decision-making.
Patent analysis methods are divided into two types: quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis. Quantitative analysis, also known as statistical analysis, mainly performs statistical analysis through the appearance characteristics of patent documents, that is, identifying relevant documents through the indexing items inherent in patent documents, and then conducting statistics on relevant indicators, and finally using different methods to analyze relevant data. Interpret changes in data to obtain intelligence on dynamic trends.
(1) Statistical objects and angles
①The statistical objects are generally based on the number of patents.
② Statistics can be conducted from different angles according to patent classification, patentee, year, country, etc.
When statistics on patent information are made by category, based on the number of patents in each field, we can know which scientific and technological fields have the most active inventions, which technologies will have breakthroughs, and which ones are about to be developed. Obsolete technology.
If patent information is collected by country, we can discover the science and technology development strategy of the countries being counted and their status in various fields. This statistical result helps people understand the focus of scientific research and development in various countries in a certain period.
If you count patents by patentee, you can find important technology owners in a certain field, or which company has an important position in this field.
(2) Main indicators of statistics
①Number of patents. The number of patents in a certain technology category can be used to measure the level of technical activities in this technical field; and the number of patents applied by a certain company or a patentee over the years reflects the occurrence, development process and development trends of its technical activities. The number of patents can be used to compare the output of technological activities and the intention to seek industrial property rights protection in different countries in different periods and in different fields.
②The number of patent families. The number of patent families for a certain invention reflects the breadth of the company’s patent applications, as well as the potential value of the invention - applying for a patent abroad is much more expensive than in your own country due to the cost of translation and specialized legal help. , only those inventions recognized by companies as having the most commercial value will apply for patents in multiple countries in order to protect future investments and exclusive rights to product output.
③The number of patent citations. The number of times a certain patent is cited by subsequent patents can reflect the importance of the patent, because after the emergence of an important patent, a large number of improvement patents will appear, and this important patent will be repeatedly cited by the improvement patents. Citations reveal the connections between patents and can be used to track patent networks corresponding to different technologies and discover patents at the intersection of different technologies. It is a pity that my country's patent database cannot provide the number of citations of patents, which is a shortcoming.
④Patent growth rate. The patent growth rate measures the percentage change in the number of patents over time, which can show whether technological innovation is increasing or slowing down over time. For example, the quarterly patent growth rate compares the number of patents obtained by a company in a certain quarter with the number of patents obtained in the previous quarter, and calculates the percentage increase or decrease in patents obtained in that quarter compared with the previous quarter. The annual patent growth rate measures the percentage change in patent growth compared with the previous year and is used to measure changes in the development of technological activities.
⑤Scientific relevance. Scientific relevance is measured by the number of scientific academic papers or research reports cited by patents (subject patents). This indicator measures the relationship between patented technology and cutting-edge scientific research. The value of scientific relevance is industry-dependent: the average value of scientific relevance in the machinery industry is close to zero, while the high-tech biochemical industry may be as high as 15.
⑥Technology life cycle. The technology life cycle is measured by the average age of the patented technology cited in the title page of the company's patent application documents. Therefore, the technology life cycle can be understood like this: it is the period of time between the latest patent and the earliest patent.
If the technology life cycle is short, it means that efforts are being made to develop a relatively new technology, and this technology is developing and innovating very quickly. The technology life cycle is industry-dependent. The technology life cycle of relatively popular industries is shorter, such as electronics, which is about 3 to 4 years, pharmaceuticals, which are about 8 to 9 years, and shipbuilding, which may be as long as 15 years.
⑦Patent efficiency. Patent efficiency measures the patent quantity output created by a certain R&D expenditure. This indicator is used to evaluate the scientific research capabilities and cost efficiency of an enterprise's patent quantity output within a predetermined time. The more patents are produced and the higher the patent efficiency, the stronger the company's technology research and development capabilities.
⑧Patent implementation rate. Whether the patent implementation rate can be beneficially implemented and whether it can bring technological innovation is still unknown for those patented technologies that have not yet been implemented. The implementation of general invention patents must go through a development process, and development is not always successful. There are many invention patent technologies that cannot be solved due to technical difficulties during the development process or cannot achieve the expected results under existing technical conditions. Don’t give up halfway or eventually give up. The implementation of invention patents can be measured from multiple perspectives such as technical performance, economic benefits, social benefits, market factors, industrial development and production capabilities, macro environment, and industrialization risks. The higher the patent implementation rate, the greater the contribution that patents make to technological development and technological innovation, and the closer they are integrated with technological development. my country's patent implementation rate only remains at around 30, which is far lower than the levels of European, American and Japanese countries.
⑨Industrial standardization indicators. In cross-industry horizontal comparisons, differences between industries bring trouble to the comparison of patent indicator values ??between different industries. For this reason, industry standardized indicators need to be used. The value of the industry standardized indicator is obtained by dividing the indicator value of an enterprise by the average value of the indicator in the industry in which the enterprise is located. For example, there are 30 companies in the chemical industry, and their average scientific relevance value is 3.7. Then the standard indicator value of each chemical company's scientific relevance should be obtained by dividing the scientific relevance index value of each company by 3.7. In this way, the different impacts of different industries can be eliminated and the best performing companies in each industry can be found.
(3) Main contents of statistics
① Study on the distribution of patented technologies by time. That is, taking time as the horizontal axis and the number of patent applications (or approvals) as the vertical axis, statistics on the changes in the number of patents over time are generally used for trend prediction.
Any technology has a process of emergence, development, maturity and aging. Changes in the number of patents applied for and the number of patent citations over the years can determine the development trend and active period of the technology, which can be used for scientific research projects, technology development, etc. Provide the basis for major decisions. A comparative study of the time distribution of patents in different technical fields can determine which technical fields are more active and which are stagnant during a certain period.
② Research on the spatial distribution of patented technologies. That is, by comparing the number of patents between different companies and enterprises to reflect their technical level and strength. Spatial distribution is generally used to identify competitors, analyze their technical strategies, etc.
By counting the patent applications of a certain technology category by patentee, we can get the distribution of a certain technology among different companies or enterprises, and understand which companies or enterprises have invested more in this field and patent activities. are more active and have advanced technological levels; and by counting the patent frequencies of companies in different technology categories, we can understand the most active areas of each company, that is, the key areas of development. In addition, by searching for patent family members of a certain patent, we can obtain the geographical distribution of these patent applications, thereby judging their commercial value and understanding the key areas of a company's technology output; it can also provide a basis for technology introduction and avoid other parties' product exports. Protected areas provide intelligence.
(4) Statistical parameters that measure different stages of technological development.
Technological growth rate: =a/A. Among them, a: the number of invention patent applications (or the number of approvals) in the current year; A: the cumulative number of invention patent applications (or the cumulative number of approvals) dating back 5 years. Calculated continuously for several years, the v value increases, indicating that the technology is in its budding or growth stage.
Technology maturity coefficient: =a/(a b).
Among them, a is the same as above, and b is the number of utility model patent applications (or approvals) in that year. Calculated continuously for several years, the α value decreases, reflecting the increasing maturity of the technology.
Technological aging coefficient β: β=(a b)/(a b c). Among them, a and b are the same as above, and c is the number of design patent or trademark applications (or approval number) in that year. Calculated continuously for several years, the β value increases, indicating that the technology is becoming obsolete.
New technology characteristic coefficient. where is the technology growth rate and is the technology maturity coefficient. It is a comprehensive indicator that reflects the emergence or aging of a certain technology. The larger the value, the stronger the characteristics of the new technology, which indicates that it has more development potential. Qualitative analysis, also called technical analysis, identifies patents based on their technical content or the “quality” of the patent, and organizes the relevant patents by merging them according to their technical characteristics. This is very different from statistical analysis that only relies on the appearance characteristics of patent documents. Qualitative analysis is generally used to obtain information on technology trends, corporate trends, specific rights status, etc. The content of important patents can be considered from five aspects: the use, principle, material, structure and method of the invention, and important patents can be classified according to similarities and differences in content. If the patent content is mainly about principles, it means that the technology is not yet mature; if the patent content is mainly about the diversity of uses, it means that the technology is already practical. In addition, by analyzing the patents of major companies in a certain technical field according to the patent content list, we can see the technical characteristics and development focus of each company; dividing the relevant patents into various patent groups according to the similarities and differences in technical content, and analyzing the different patent groups owned by a certain company. Or by analyzing the changes in patent groups in different periods, we can analyze and predict key issues in the development process of a certain technology or product, future development trends and application trends, and relationships with other technologies.
Due to the specific content of technology involved, the work of qualitative analysis is relatively heavy and complicated. Whether to use quantitative analysis or qualitative analysis should depend on the problem you hope to solve and the patent data you have. In fact, it is often necessary to combine qualitative analysis with quantitative analysis to achieve good results. For example, you can first use quantitative analysis to determine which companies have technological advantages in a certain technical field (the number of patent applications or approvals can reflect the level of technical activity), and identify important patents in this technical field (the number of citations of a certain patent by subsequent patents). reflect the importance of patents), and then conduct a qualitative analysis of the important patents of these companies.
Quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis of patent information reflect the development status and development trend of technology through quantitative changes and the other through intrinsic qualitative changes. There are differences between the two, but there is also an inevitable connection. The classification of quantity needs to be based on quality, and quality must be reflected through quantity. Therefore, in actual work, using the two together will achieve better results.
There are many indicators for patent analysis, and different indicators can be used to objectively evaluate patent data from different angles. Many foreign patent consulting organizations have established their own complete set of analysis indicator systems, such as the American Morgan Research and Analysis Association, CHI Research Center, etc. They combine and use multiple analysis indicators in their analysis to comprehensively evaluate patent data. Some commonly used analysis indicators are now listed in Table 2.
Compared with more mature foreign patent analysis methods and index systems, domestic patent analysis still does not pay enough attention and is less utilized. The degree of processing of patent information resources in the analysis is low, and the patent database There is no record of patent citations in China, so that some important analysis methods such as patent citation analysis and its corresponding indicators cannot be used. Ultimately, the value of patent analysis cannot be fully utilized in domestic corporate strategies. However, we should see that patent analysis does have a very good auxiliary prediction effect on the strategic decision-making of enterprises. Therefore, when conducting patent analysis in China, we should learn from foreign analysis methods and indicators, deepen the processing of patent information, and establish patent citation and other databases to better Maximize the value of patent information and serve corporate strategic competition.