Technology Cross-disciplinary Research Based On The Degree Distribution Characteristic Of Patent Citation Networks

Technology cross-domain research is helpful to discover the law of technology development and transfer. It is also meaningful to those who owns innovations for expanding application fields which will create more R&D outputs. For people who looks for solutions, it provides a widen perspective to access knowledge resources.This paper provide a new way to identify the transfer of technology fields which analyzes the characters of in-degree patent citation networks. The judgment of technology field transfer is achieved through calculating the degree distribution of patent citation networks. To clarify this idea further, an example of 8608 patents of graphene technology collected from Derwent World Patents Index is proposed to construct patent citation network. The results show that the in-degree distribution follows the power law when the technology is applied in the same field. And the preferential attachment mechanism works well. While the in-degree distribution disobey power law when the technology is applied across various fields. The preferential attachment doesn’t work so well as the former situation. The graphene patent citation relationship analysis show that there is a tendency to apply its technology in the same domain. It also means that a patent is incline to cite patents in similar field. As to the accuracy when apply this method, this paper analysis the patent citation relationship integrity and patent technology field affiliation validity. These factors while will influence the patent network quality and the technology field definition. Some suggestions to improve the accuracy of proposed method are also provide.The method proposed is helpful to identify a technology’s application of cross-disciplinary. It will give suggestions to enterprises for R&D selection and solution search. It will help the government to make policies. Thus it will promote the multi-domain application of technology. The common features and individuality of patent networks analysis are useful to reveal the technology application evolution which will lay good foundation for innovation decision and patent portfolio.