Evaluating the patenting activities of pharmaceutical research organizations based on new technology indices

Several citation-based indicators, including patent h-index, have been introduced to evaluate the patenting activities of research organizations. However, variants developed to complement h-index have not been utilized yet in the domain of intellectual property management. The main purpose of this study is to propose new indices that can be used to evaluate the patenting activities of research and development (R&D) organizations, based on h-type complementary variants along with traditional indicators. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is used to identify those indices. By applying the proposed framework to pharmaceutical R&D organizations, which have their patents registered in the United States Patent Trademark Office (USPTO), the following three indices are obtained: the forward citation, impact per unit time, and patent family factors. The ranking obtained from the new indices can represent the productive capacity of the qualified patent, patent commercialization speed, and patent commercialization effort of research organizations. The new proposed indices in this study are expected to contribute to the evaluation of the patenting activities of R&D organizations from various perspectives. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.