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- Author or Editor: Martin Meyer x
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Abstract
This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of patent citation analysis in general and its application to novel fields of science and technology in particular. It introduces into the subject-matter by discussing an empirical problem, the relationship of nano-publications and nano-patents as representations of nano-science and nano-technology. Drawing on a variety of sources, different interpretations of patent citations are presented. Then, the nature of patent citations is further investigated by comparing them to citations in the scientific literature. After characterizing the citation linkage as indicators of reciprocal relationships between science and technology, patent citations in nano-science and technology are analyzed in terms of interfield and organizational knowledge-flows.
Abstract
The emergence of pattent bibliometrics as a new branch of scientometrics necessitates a deeper understanding of the relationship between patents and papers. As this connection is established through the linkage between patents and research papers, one must have a clear idea of similarities and differences between patent and paper citations. This paper will investigate to what extent one can not only apply bibliometric methods to patents but also extend the existing interpretative framework for citations in research papers to the field of patent citations. After pointing out some parallels in the debates about the nature of citations in patents and scientific articles, the paper outlines those parts of bibliometric theory covering scientific citations that could be relevant to patent citations too. Then it highlights the specialties and peculiarities of patent citations. One major conclusion is that the general nature of a common framework for both scientific and patent citations would severely limit its usefulness, but research on academic citations might still be a great source of inspiration to the study of patent citations.
Abstract
This contribution formulates a number of propositions about the emergence of novel nanoscience and nanotechnology (N&N). Seeking to complement recent work that aims to define a research agenda and draws on general insights from the innovation literature, this paper aims to synthesize knowledge from innovation-related studies of the N&N field. More specifically, it is suggested that N&N is often misconstrued as either a field of technology or an area of (broadly) converging technologies while evidence to date suggests rather that N&N be considered a set of inter-related and overlapping about not necessarily merging technologies. The role of instrumentation in connecting the various N&N fields is underlined. Finally, the question is raised whether change in N&N tends to be incremental rather than discontinuous, being the result of technological path-dependencies and lock-ins in industry-typical search regimes that are only slowly giving way to more boundary-crossing activities.
Summary
Policy-makers in many countries emphasize the importance of non-publication output of university research. Increasingly, policies are pursued that attempt to encourage entrepreneurial activity in universities and public research institutes. Apart from generating spin-out companies, technology licensing, and collaborative research, attention is focused on patenting activities of researchers. Some analysts suggest that there is a trade-off between scholarly publication and patenting activity. This paper explores this relationship drawing on a data set of nanoscience publications and nanotechnology patents in three European countries. In particular, this study examines whether researchers who both publish and patent are more productive and more highly cited than their peers who concentrate on scholarly publication in communicating their research results. Furthermore, this study investigates the collaborative activity of inventor-authors and their position in their respective networks of scientific communication. The findings suggest that overall there seems to be no adverse relationship between publication and patenting activity, at least not in this area of science and technology. Patenting scientists appear to outperform their solely publishing, non-inventing peers in terms of publication counts and citation frequency. However, while they are considerably over-represented in the top performance class, the data indicates that inventor-authors may not occupy top positions within that group. An analysis of co-authorship links indicates that patenting authors can also play a prominent role within networks of scientific communication. The network maps also point to groups where inventor-authors occur frequently and others where this is not the case, which possibly reflects cognitive differences between sub-fields. Finally, the data indicates that inventor-authors account only for a marginal share of publishing scholars while they play a substantial role amongst inventors.
Summary
This paper addresses the issue of how science-technology interaction can be measured in the knowledge-driven economy. More specifically, it compares the patent citation indicator to another patent-based measure using data on a small European economy. Patent citation patterns will be compared to researcher patents. Comparing the two indicators suggests different patterns of science-technology linkage. An analysis of revealed technology contributions of academic inventors and a survey-based analysis of technological collaboration and knowledge transfer point to a possible explanation. Furthermore the research presents evidence that suggests technology sectors are related to different modes of collaboration in inventive processes amongst academics.
Abstract
This paper gives an overview of quantitative approaches used to study the science/technology linkage. Our discussion is informed by a number of theoretical approaches that have emerged over the past few years in the area of innovation studies emphasizing the exchange of actors in innovation system and a shift in the division of labour between publicly funded basic research and industrial development of technology. We review the more quantitative literature on efforts made to study such linkage phenomena, to which theorizing in the science policy area has attributed great importance. We then introduce a typology of three approaches to study the science/technology linkage - patent citation, industrial science, and university patenting. For each approach, we shall discuss merits and possible disadvantages. In another step we illustrate them using results from studies of the Finnish innovation system. Finally, we list key limitations of the informetric methods and point to possible hybrid approaches that could remedy some of them.
Abstract
This paper explores the interrelationships between science and technology in the emergingarea of nano-science and technology. We track patent citation relations at the sectoraldisciplinary,the organizational, and the combined industrial/organizational levels. Then weinvestigate the geographic location and organizational affiliation of inventor/authors. Our mainfinding is that there are only a small number of citations connecting nano-patents with nanosciencepapers, while nano-science and technology appear to be relatively well connected incomparison with other fields. Further explorations suggest that nano-science and technology arestill mostly separated spheres, even though there are overlaps, as an analysis of title words shows.Another observation is that university-assigned patents seem to cite papers more frequently thanother patents.
Abstract
The multidimensional character and inherent conflict with categorisation of interdisciplinarity makes its mapping and evaluation a challenging task. We propose a conceptual framework that aims to capture interdisciplinarity in the wider sense of knowledge integration, by exploring the concepts of diversity and coherence. Disciplinary diversity indicators are developed to describe the heterogeneity of a bibliometric set viewed from predefined categories, i.e. using a top-down approach that locates the set on the global map of science. Network coherence indicators are constructed to measure the intensity of similarity relations within a bibliometric set, i.e. using a bottom-up approach, which reveals the structural consistency of the publications network. We carry out case studies on individual articles in bionanoscience to illustrate how these two perspectives identify different aspects of interdisciplinarity: disciplinary diversity indicates the large-scale breadth of the knowledge base of a publication; network coherence reflects the novelty of its knowledge integration. We suggest that the combination of these two approaches may be useful for comparative studies of emergent scientific and technological fields, where new and controversial categorisations are accompanied by equally contested claims of novelty and interdisciplinarity.
Abstract
University patenting has been heralded as a symbol of changing relations between universities and their social environments. The Bayh–Dole Act of 1980 in the USA was eagerly promoted by the OECD as a recipe for the commercialization of university research, and the law was imitated by a number of national governments. However, since the 2000s university patenting in the most advanced economies has been on the decline both as a percentage and in absolute terms. In addition to possible saturation effects and institutional learning, we suggest that the institutional incentives for university patenting have disappeared with the new regime of university ranking. Patents and spin-offs are not counted in university rankings. In the new arrangements of university–industry–government relations, universities have become very responsive to changes in their relevant environments.
Abstract
Third-Stream activities have become increasingly important in the UK. However, valuing them in a meaningful way still poses a challenge to science and technology analysts and policy makers alike. This paper reviews the general literature on “patent value” and assesses the extent to which these established measures, including patent citation, patent family, renewal and litigation data, can be applied to the university context. Our study examines indicators of patent value for short and mid-term evaluation purposes, rather than indicators that suffer from long time lags. We also explore the extent to which differences in IP management practices at universities may have an impact on the validity and robustness of possible indicators. Our observations from four UK universities indicate that there are considerable differences between universities as to how they approach the IP management process, which in turn has implications for valuing patents and how they track activity in this area. In their current form, data as collected by universities are not sufficiently robust to serve as the basis for evaluation or resource allocation.