Creating patents on the new technology using analogy-based patent mining

Patents on the new technology–a technology not yet commercialized and in an early stage of its life cycle–give firms many benefits. However, existing methods are inadequate because of dependencies on customers and physical prototypes. And there is lack of systems, focused on a problem identification process or an inter-technological comparison. In this research, to remedy existing limitations, analogybased patent mining system is suggested. The system is developed based on an assumption that similar problems would occur in technologies that have similar properties or functions. So, the system is focused on identification of a Problem Solved Concept (PSC), which describes what problem is solved in the patent. At the first part of the system, the mature technology–a technology relatively matured than the new technology–is described with a property and a function; one of the property or the function should be similar to which of the new technology considered. And the system extract PSCs, construct patent map, and evaluate PSCs utilizing patents on the new and the mature technologies. As a result, the PSCs with high opportunities are revealed and patents related to the PSCs are examined. Then users of this system select some patents as resources for analogy. The system is tested by a case study of wireless charger technology. For the case study, 352 patents on wireless router technology and 227 patents on wireless charger technology are used. At the final, patents related to ‘handoff’, showed a high opportunity score and one of the patents is introduced to show the possibility of patent creation through analogy. 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.