This paper proposes a multi-class classification model for technology evaluation (TE) using patent documents. TE is defined as converting technology quality to its present value; it supports efficient research and development using intellectual property rights–research & development (IP–R&D) and decision-making by companies. Through IP–R&D, companies create their patent portfolios and develop technology management strategies. They protect core patents and use those patents to cooperate with other companies. In modern society, as conversion technology has been rapidly developed, previous TE methods became difficult to apply to technology. This is because they relied on expert-based qualitative methods. Qualitative results are difficult to use to guarantee objectivity. Many previous studies have proposed models for evaluating technology based on patent data to address these limitations. However, those models can lose contextual information during the preprocessing of bibliographic information and require a lexical analyzer suitable for processing terminology in patents. This study uses a lexical analyzer produced using a deep learning structure to overcome this limitation. Furthermore, the proposed method uses quantitative information and bibliographic information of patents as explanatory variables and classifies the technology into multiple classes. The multi-class classification is conducted by sequentially evaluating the value of a technology. This method returns multiple classes in order, enabling class comparison. Moreover, it is model-agnostic, enabling diverse algorithms to be used. We conducted experiments using actual patent data to examine the practical applicability of the proposed methodology. Based on the experiment results, the proposed method was able to classify actual patents into an ordered multi-class. In addition, it was possible to guarantee the objectivity of the results. This is because our model used the information in the patent specification. Furthermore, the model using both quantitative and bibliographic information exhibited higher classification performance than the model using only quantitative information. Therefore, the proposed model can contribute to the sustainable growth of companies by classifying the value of technology into more detailed categories.

Companies and research institutes are acquiring monopolized technologies through patents to survive in a rapidly changing market. The applicant is guaranteed by law the exclusive right to the technology for a certain period. A prior art search is an essential task for this purpose. Therefore, the need for a successful prior art search is increasing. Previous studies have disadvantages because relevant fields are limited, requiring an in-depth understanding of specific technologies. This paper proposes a method to overcome these limitations using patent text and citation information. The proposed method searches for prior art using a citation network based on the shortest path derived from a breadth-first search. We examined based on experiments whether the proposed method could be applied to the industry. Based on the results, the proposed algorithm can efficiently search for prior art. Furthermore, it was possible to construct a counterstrategy based on the characteristics of the applicant. The code will be made available at github.com/lee-ju/k_step_PIC.

Outliers that deviate from a normal distribution are typically removed during the analysis process. However, the patterns of outliers are recognized as important information in the outlier detection method. This study proposes a technology trend screening framework based on a machine learning algorithm using outliers. The proposed method is as follows: first, we split the dataset by time into training and testing sets for training the Doc2Vec model. Next, we pre-process the patent documents using the trained model. The final outlier documents are selected from the preprocessed document data, through voting for the outlier documents extracted using the IQR, the three-sigma rule, and the Isolation Forest algorithm. Finally, the technical topics of the outlier documents extracted through the topic model are identified. This study analyzes the patent data on drones to describe the proposed method. Results show that, despite cumulative research on drone-related hardware and system technology, there is a general lack of research regarding the autonomous flight field.

The sustainable growth of a company requires a differentiated research and development strategy through the discovery of technology opportunities. However, previous studies fell short of the need for utilizing outlier keywords, based on approaches from various perspectives, to discover technology opportunities. In this study, a technology opportunity discovery method utilizing outlier keywords is proposed. First, the collected patent data are divided into several subsets, and outlier keywords are derived using the W2V and LOF. The derived keywords are clustered through the K-means algorithm. Finally, the similarity between the clusters is evaluated to determine the cluster with the most similarity as a potential technology. In this study, 5679 cases of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) patent data were utilized, from which three technology opportunities were derived: UAV defense technology, UAV charging station technology, and UAV measurement precision improvement technology. The proposed method will contribute to discovering differentiated technology fields in advance using technologies with semantic differences and outlier keywords, in which the meaning of words is considered through W2V application.

Rapid market change is one of the reasons for accelerating a technology lifecycle. Enterprises have socialized, externalized, combined, and internalized knowledge for their survival. However, the current era requires ambidextrous innovation through the diffusion of knowledge from enterprises. Accordingly, enterprises have discovered sustainable resources and increased market value through collaborations with research institutions and universities. Such collaborative activities effectively improve enterprise innovation, economic growth, and national competence. However, as such collaborations are conducted continuously and iteratively, their effect has gradually weakened. Therefore, we focus on exploring potential R&D collaboration partners through patents co-owned by enterprises, research institutions, and universities. The business pattern of co-applicants is extracted through a patent graph, and potential R&D collaboration partners are unearthed. In this paper, we propose a method of converting a co-applicant-based graph into a vector using representation learning. Our purpose is to explore potential R&D collaboration partners from the similarity between vectors. Compared to other methods, the proposed method contributes to discovering potential R&D collaboration partners based on organizational features. The following questions are considered in order to discover potential R&D partners in collaborative activities: Can information about co-applicants of patents satisfactorily explain R&D collaboration? Conversely, can potential R&D collaboration partners be discovered from co-applicants? To answer these questions, we conducted experiments using autonomous-driving-related patents. We verified that our proposed method can explore potential R&D collaboration partners with high accuracy through experiments.