以專利被引增量衡量公司之動態創新表現

Abstract

本研究以專利被引增量衡量公司動態創新表現。透過比較專利之年被引增量與同申請年專利群之被引表現，可得出該專利之相對年被引增量(annual citation increment)，並由此將專利分為三個相對被引等級。透過三個變數定義相對被引等級於分析時段內之變化，即衡量在分析時段內該專利被分為最高相對被引等級之年數、該專利自申請年起算至首次被分為最高相對被引等級所經歷之年數，以及該專利連續被分為最高相對被引等級之最長期間。根據此三變數將專利每年被引增量之變化分為三專利類型及二子專利類型，各專利類型代表不同年被引增量分配型態。本研究利用此動態方法衡量1976-2015美國專利資料庫中，以美國經濟研究院(NBER)歸類為數位資訊儲存專利群裡，擁有前20多專利數量之專利權人的創新表現。比較公司各類被引增量型態之專利相對於母體數量比例隨時間之變化，相較於以靜態指標如專利平均被引數或h指標，更明確了解專利權人之動態專利競爭力。

The study aims at measuringtheinnovativeperformance of companiesbased on the dynamic of citationincrements. Patentsare classified into three grades according to the annual citation increments comparing to the patentcohort applied inthesameyear. Three characteristics are utilized to trace the change of citation increments overtime: (1) the number of years classified in the highest grade of relative citations; (2) the durationbeforethe first year classified as the highest grade of relative citations (3) the longest duration continuously classified in the highest relative citation grade. The three characteristics identify the lifetime patterns of annual citation incrementwhich can be characterized as threepatent typesand two patent sub-types.Each of the fivepatent types characterizeshow the citation increments fluctuate with time. We apply theproposedmethod to measure the top 20 companieswiththe most patent countsfrom the Information Storage technology field categorized by NBER. By comparing companies’ proportions of each patent type to total patent countsover time, the obsolescence of patents, the patterns of citation accumulation as well as whether the patent has long-term impact can be identified, which cannot show by measuring aggregated citation-based indicators, such as average accumulated citations or h-index.