Work

Discovering Potential Technology Opportunities for Fuel Cell Vehicle Firms: A Multi-Level Patent Portfolio-Based Approach

Year: 2019

Type: article

Abstract: Technology opportunity discovery (TOD) is an important technique to help fuel cell vehicle (FCV) firms keep market advantage and sustainable development. Under fierce competition in the new energy industry, there is an urgent necessity for innovative TOD methods to effectively identify technology opportunities for FCV firms. This study proposes a structured TOD framework with a multi-level identification process. Based on technology portfolio analysis, it fully integrates the firm’s technology level analysis, technology potential analysis and patent novelty analysis. A series of techniques such as LDA (latent Dirichlet allocation), MDS (multidimensional scaling) and LOF (local outlier factor) are also applied in the framework. A total of 14,858 granted patent data of the FCV industry containing 798 patents of the target firm were extracted from the Derwent Innovation Index database as the input data of the empirical study. The result shows that the framework can provide a more profound analysis for identifying technology opportunities, which offer more appropriate insights in both strategic and operational level technological decisions for technology-oriented firms.

Source: Sustainability

DOI: 10.3390/su11226381

Authors: Xuan Shi, Lingfei Cai, Hongfang Song

Institutions: Shanxi University, Shanghai Business School, Hebei University of Economics and Business

Language: English

Topic: Intellectual Property and Patents

Subfield: Management of Technology and Innovation

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Industry, innovation and infrastructure, Affordable and clean energy

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,722