Discovering technology opportunities based on the linkage between technology and business areas: matching patents and trademarks

ABSTRACT

Technology opportunity analysis (TOA) is of great help to technology innovation and R&D strategy of enterprises. Most previous studies of TOA only focused on scientific research or technology development phases, seldom linking technology opportunities to business applications. Using both patent and trademark data, we focused on the linkage of technology and business areas and discovered technology opportunities based on firms’ existing technology base. First, we extracted common product keywords from two data sources to construct document-keyword matrices. Then, we matched patents and trademarks with common keywords to build the relevancy network between technology and the business areas. Finally, we discovered technology opportunities from potential undeveloped business areas, taking into account technology-business relevancy and firms’ technology base. We conducted a case study on 3D printing to test our method.

KEYWORDS:

• Technology opportunity analysis
• patents analysis
• trademarks analysis
• text mining
• 3D printing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 72074020 , 71774012, 71673024 ]. The findings and observations in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the supportervs.

Notes on contributors

Xiaotong Han

Xiaotong Han is a PHD candidate of the School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology. Her current specialty is technology innovation management and tech mining.

Donghua Zhu

Donghua Zhu is a Professor of the School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology and was a Senior Visiting Scholar at School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology. His current specialty is data mining, technology assessment and forecasting.

Xuefeng Wang

Xuefeng Wang is a Professor of the School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology. His current specialty is technology innovation management and tech mining.

Tugrul Daim

Tugrul Daim is a Professor of Engineering and Technology Management, Portland State University and an editor in Chief IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. His current specialty is technology forecasting.

Yali Qiao

Yali Qiao is a PHD candidate of the School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology. Her current specialty is technology innovation management and tech mining.