Study On Patent Collaboration Patterns Based On Co-inventorship Bibliometrics

Innovation is the soul of a nation’s progress and the unceasing power of a country’s prosperity. Meanwhile, innovation is a kind of complex social work with the characteristics of high-intelligence, high-input and high-risk that needs the collaborative wisdom and strength. No matter in the field of science&technology or the field of humanities&social science, the collaborative tendency of scientific research is enhanced greatly, with the collaboration ratio is growing and collaboration research is developing to the high-level, deep-level and multi-position direction. Just as Norbert Wiener, who is the founder of Cybernetics, said that the era of Edison’s individual invention had passed by and we had entered the era of scientific research collaboration. Thus research on scientific collaboration has aroused widespread concern in the academic circles. But most of existing research is based on the quantitative analysis of co-author papers. Patent is an essential part of innovation system. Among many forms of scientific research output, patent is one of the most direct indicators representing innovation capacity and technical level. About80%of the technical information appears in the patent publication and often doesn’t reproduce in other kinds of documents. Therefore, research on scientific collaboration from the prospective of patent co-inventorship can be able to deduce a series of new conclusions and findings to greatly enrich the existing research results in the field of scientific collaboration.Facing the national innovation system, this paper introduces the theories, methods and tools of bibliometrics to the field of patent analysis, discussing the collaboration relations and patterns between patent inventors and assignees, and knowledge communication along with patent collaboration, in order to provide reference information for scientific management departments and scientific researchers, in the hope of providing suggestions to promote scientific research efficiency and propel national innovation system. Based on the quantitative analysis of patent co-inventorship, we can intuitively learn the patents’production, distribution, communication and development in China. A large number of detailed statistical data and research results, as well as the proposed optimization strategies can be drawn from the co-inventorship bibliometrics, in the hope of offering decision-making basis to improve innovation environment, better knowledge communication, promote technology level and propel China’s patent development.In addition to the introduction, conclusion and prospect, this paper contains other three parts:The first part (Chapter1) discusses on the theory basis including related concepts, relative factors、basic theories and research perspectives. Firstly, the related concepts about patent collaboration are defined and explained firstly. And the relations between related themes, such as scientometrics&patent bibliometrics, scientific collaboration&patent collaboration, knowledge transfer&technology transfer, knowledge communication&knowledge innovation, are combed in this part. Secondly, basic factors are investigated around the topics about collaborators, motives and applications of patent collaboration. Thirdly, several basic theories and their implications for the scientific collaboration research are analyzed respectively. Finally, there are five research perspectives in the field of patent collaboration:science of law, economic science, scientometrics, information science and knowledge management science. Main contents and characteristics of each perspective are summarized respectively.The second part (Chapter2, Chapter3and Chapter4) respectively makes use of three kinds of methods---mathematical statistics, social network analysis and correlation analysis, to analyze the general situation of patent collaboration patterns in China.Chapter2is the overall description of patent collaboration patterns. It investigates the degree, scale, intensity and scope of patent collaboration from the perspectives of collaboration ratio and degree, co-inventors’distribution law, collaboration frequency distribution law and collaboration type distribution law. Statistical results indicate that the degree, scale, intensity and scope of patent collaboration in China are generally low that urgently need to be promoted.Chapter3has carried out a comprehensive analysis on the co-inventorship network from the aspects of overall network, structure and nodes of network etc. and deduced some kinds of typical collaboration patterns. This chapter has confirmed that co-inventorship network is not only a complex network but also a social relations network and patent co-invent relations are the map of social relations. Besides, the analysis on the regional co-inventorship network demonstrates that there are obvious uneven distribution and geographical orientation existing in the co-inventorship relations between different provinces and regions in China.Chapter4verifies if patent collaboration as well as different kinds of collaboration patterns has influence to the scientific output. It has confirmed that there is a significant correlation between collaboration and output. And different kinds of collaboration patterns can also influence the patent output. Thus, if collaboration can promote output or not is affected by patent collaboration patterns to some extent.The third part (Chapter5) studies the optimization strategies of patent collaboration patterns based on those statistics and conclusions in the front parts of this paper. Firstly we point out the problems and shortcomings existed in the present collaboration patterns. Secondly, we put forward series of measures and recommendations on how to improve patent collaboration patterns:to improve collaboration degree, to organize collaboration process scientifically, diversification of collaboration patterns, to promote collaboration through social relations, to enhance university-enterprise collaboration, to enhance international collaboration, to define the roles and functions of innovation actors, to construct cross-regional innovation alliance. Finally, we propose the guarantee mechanisms required by patent collaboration patterns, including three aspects of policy, culture and platform.