Recognition of Emerging Technology Trends. Class-selective study of citations in the U.S. Patent Citation Network

TL;DR

This paper presents a citation-based recursive ranking method to trace the emergence of new technology fields in the U.S. Patent Citation Network, revealing how recombination of existing technologies leads to innovation and enabling future predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel recursive ranking approach tailored for patent citation analysis and demonstrates its effectiveness in identifying and understanding emerging technology trends.

Findings

Laser/inkjet printer technology emerged from recombination of existing tech.

Optimal PageRank damping factor for patent network is around 0.5.

Using d=0.85 yields poor ranking results.

Abstract

By adopting a citation-based recursive ranking method for patents the evolution of new fields of technology can be traced. Specifically, it is demonstrated that the laser / inkjet printer technology emerged from the recombination of two existing technologies: sequential printing and static image production. The dynamics of the citations coming from the different "precursor" classes illuminates the mechanism of the emergence of new fields and give the possibility to make predictions about future technological development. For the patent network the optimal value of the PageRank damping factor is close to 0.5; the application of d=0.85 leads to unacceptable ranking results.