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‘Metaverse’ is set to be the disruptive technology which is about to bring an overhaul in the functioning of myriad sectors ranging from education, entertainment, health care, businesses amongst others. The key feature of this technology is the immersion of physical world into a virtual world. Metaverse in a way finds its roots on the technologies of Virtual/ Augmented Reality (VR/AR) which essentially are about simulating real world and augmenting the real – world experience in the digital world. Intellectual Property Rights which exist for protection of intangible assets, hence are vital in perspective of Metaverse. This research analyses the IP form of Patents in reference to Metaverse. Patents are an attractive choice due to the commercial advantage and the higher level of protection it offers compared to other IP forms. The trend of surge in patent applications seen with emerging technologies like AI and Blockchain is likely to be reflected with metaverse. The article views the metaverse and patent domain through an overarching lens gauging the possible scope and challenges. The analysis is based on US, EU and Indian patent laws to get a comprehensive picture across the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Structural characteristics' are gambling product design features which contribute to the amount of time or money that gamblers spend using them, such as the short pay-out intervals of electronic gaming machines (EGMs). However, it is important to also understand the structural characteristics of current online sports betting products, and how these products may continue to evolve via a forward-looking analysis of utility patents, given the increasing international popularity of this gambling mode. A scoping review of the emergent structural characteristics associated with online sports betting was conducted upon the literature (2015–2022), and of sports betting utility patents. A total of 26 literature records and 8 utility patents were included. Results indicated that online sports betting is instantly accessible, provides rapid and continuous betting opportunities, and offers user-interactivity via features such as 'cash-out' and the ability to instantly deposit funds. Additionally, the online sports betting market has expanded into adjacent industries such as esports. The included utility patents suggest that online sports betting may evolve by incorporating peer-to-peer competitive elements, augmented reality, and highly specific statistics/notifications. Overall, the online environment has transformed sports betting into a faster and more harmful gambling mode that provides a diverse range of features and betting opportunities. It is important that this area of research develops in order to encourage appropriate policy and the more ethical redesign of online sports betting products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes to scrutinise the evolution of technological diversification of organisations whose activities are mainly nanotechnologies. We resort to the InnoVue search platform to gather patent information related to the world's largest intellectual property organisations. We apply a five-step analysis on a panel dataset of 16042 distinct patents published between 1985 and 2020 and recorded on June 29, 2021. Text mining has been employed to explore key topics with high-level technological activeness, while a trend analysis has been applied to study diversification characteristics and evolution patterns. Moreover, we initiate spatial autocorrelation modelling to detect spatiotemporal patterns of technical innovation in nanotechnology. Results show that nanobiotechnology and nanophotonics have become new technical hotspots over the last decade. Furthermore, spatial analysis returns a significant clustered pattern among nanotechnology patent distributions and shows that nanotechnology activities were mainly concentrated in Asian countries during the period under study. Our research has policy implications and may interest decision-makers and academics looking to explore nanotechnology's evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For assessing the overall impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI), it is crucial to continuously monitor large corporations. This paper delves into the examination of 42 corporations that rank among the world's largest investors in R&D, accounting for over one-third of AI patents globally. The focus is on their post-patenting performance, specifically in terms of employment changes, and comparing it with the outcomes of 42 similar companies operating in the same sectors. The latter also recorded substantial levels of R&D expenditures but were not significantly involved in AI patenting. The key findings reveal that, in the medium – and high-tech manufacturing sectors, companies with the highest proportions of AI patents incurred in employment reductions. Conversely, IT services companies experienced substantial employment growth. Along with tentative explanations of these findings, advantages, limitations, and possible developments of this type of analysis are illustrated in the concluding section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The citrus essential oil isolation has vast potential to valorize waste from the agro-industrial and food sectors. The objective of this work was to develop a review of patents on essential oil isolation systems from any plant and citrus essential oil isolation systems and/or methods. The technological search was carried out in the patent databases of Espacenet, Patentscope, Scopus, ScienceDirect, Google Patents, LENS ORG, and USPTO from 2000 to 2021. The results highlight that most of the inventions are from China and consist of isolation methods for citrus essential oil. The USA´s inventions stand out as systems that can be produced on a larger scale. The patent shares of the educational and private sectors are 26% and 74%, respectively. About 10.53% of patents protect commercially exploited products. Finally, an opportunity was detected to protect methods and/or systems that integrate renewable energy technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific papers and patents are reliable sources of knowledge carriers for measuring science and technology advances, predicting technological trends, and formulating technology strategies. Although the idea of entirely using the two knowledge carriers is rapidly emerging in academic discussion, a theoretical framing of the comparisons is still not present in literature. This study conducts bibliometrics on 2986 patent families and 4755 scientific papers related to silicon carbide metal–oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (SiC-MOSFET) to identify its technological trends and compare the similarities and differences in knowledge generation and diffusion in science and technology. Our methodological framework consists of a combination of geographic distribution (identifying the research developments and distribution), cooperation networks (analyzing organisation collaboration and individual research cooperation), noun phrase co-occurrence clusters (discovering hot research topics), and the global main path analyses of citation networks (tracking the trajectory of knowledge flows). Ultimately, our results contribute to recent bibliometric paradigms beyond discovering the role of scientific papers and patents in promoting science and technology integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the intangible assets related to the circular economy, defined as 'circular patents', that are classified and measured to be bundled into the innovation capabilities of a firm. The impact of a business's capabilities on its level of circular patent activism is empirically analysed in this study in a theoretical framework of dynamic capabilities. To this end, a model of the cause-and-effect relationship between the circular patents held by firms and their capabilities is designed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and is tested using a sample of 120,406 patents in 2216 Spanish companies. In this analysis, patents that can foster the sharing economy and the circular economy in sensu latu are also considered circular patents, in addition to waste patents and other green patents, offering an enhanced measurement of the intangible assets related to the circular economy. Based on these results, this study provides new insight of how accounting can enable or constrain the transition to a circular economy business model through the measurement and valuation of related intangible assets and the specific business' capabilities in an environmental management framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological development and environmental patents have become one of the policy options to solve the problem of global warming. With the development of technology, waste recycling can be faster and more environmentally friendly, which can contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gasses. The question of which patents and technologies should be promoted for waste management is an important decision-making and research topic. Given the increasing importance of ecological patents and waste disposal for environmental sustainability, this study examines the impact of technological progress on reducing waste-related greenhouse gas (WGHG) emissions in BRIC countries. The study considers energy generation and transmission-related patents (EPAT), patents to prevent pollution in the production process of goods (GPAT), and waste management-related patents (WPAT) as technological progress indicators. Methodologically, the study the applies novel quantile-on-quantile regression (QQ), Granger causality-in-quantiles (GQ), and quantile regression (QR) for the period from 1997m5 to 2019m12. The findings demonstrate that at higher quantiles, (i) EPAT have a dampening effect on WGHG in Brazil and India; (ii) GPAT have a diminishing effect on WGHG in Brazil, Russia, and India; (iii) WPAT have a diminishing effect on WGHG in Brazil, Russia, and India. Overall, technological progress contributes to WGHG emissions reduction in Brazil and India, while EPAT is not beneficial for Russia, and China cannot benefit from patents. The results suggest that Brazil, Russia and India should financially support and disseminate distinct patents to reduce WGHG emissions and improve waste management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological upgradation is the driving force of social and economic development. Although technological upgradation is extensively needed, it is characterised as high intelligence, high investment, and high risk. In the face of complex market competition patterns, industrial enterprises urgently need to seek external cooperation and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. However, the current digital systems of patents fail to fulfil efficiency improvement from technology transfer to research and development (R&D) cooperation for industrial enterprise. Nor does it provide adequate support for industrial enterprises' technological upgradation. Therefore, this research proposes a systematic framework that combines nautral language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) technologies, including the patent recommendation model, patent transferability evaluation model, and research team detection model. Such a digital system of patents improves the efficiency of technology transactions and R&D cooperation with research institutions for industrial enterprises to identify related authorised patents and locate technology research teams. It is also expected that the developed system will enable research institutions to recommend valuable patents and transfer innovative technologies effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firm's inter-regional investments are crucial carriers of capital flows between cities, transforming information resources into innovation capabilities. Based on the listed companies' inter-regional investments data and patent data in China during 2009-2018, the mechanism of the inter-regional investments in technological catch-up and the heterogeneity in different samples have been investigated via the two-stage least squares regression. The results show that: (a) Inter-regional investments enhance the innovation capability, narrow the technological distance, and play a more significant role than foreign capital; (b) Technological catch-up is achieved through independent innovation, the transmission mechanism of imitative innovation does not hold; (c) When there is no market segmentation, the role of inter-regional investments on technological catch-up is realised entirely through independent innovation. Segmentation hinders the technological catch-up process; (d) The partial mediating effect of the manufacturing industry on technological catch-up holds, while in non-manufacturing industries, it is not significant. Inter-regional investments are important for the improvement of local innovation capacity and for China's catching up with the world's technological frontiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South African bioeconomy strategy did not clearly articulate the measurement framework to monitor the implementation of the strategy. This paper provides an analysis of bioeconomy patents, the most prolific organizations and citations at the EPO and USPTO for South Africa, BRICS, Egypt and Nigeria during the Ten-Year Innovation Plan 2008–2018. The terms 'biotechnology', 'medical technology', 'pharmaceuticals' and 'selected environment-related technologies' were used to search for patents. The OECD patents by technology, the EPO PATSTAT and the USPTO PatFT databases were used to map patents and citations. The results show that South Africa ranked last in the BRICS group but produced a higher number of patents than Egypt and Nigeria. The number of patents generally decreased for the selected countries except for China. The total citations for the selected countries was generally inconsistent. The important innovators for South Africa in the bioeconomy are mainly universities and public research institutions. A new fiscal approach to encourage knowledge application in bioeconomy in South Africa is required. Incentives from government that encourage collaboration between research institutions and industry to direct research with industry application are required. The study contributes to the development of metrics to monitor the bioeconomy in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an exceptional rise in the number of industries in recent times, resulting in a leap in pollution caused, in addition to a large amount of waste being generated. Industrial pollution affects the entire ecosystem, predominantly the air, water, and soil. Remediation of air, water, and soil from industrial pollutants thus becomes a matter of concern due to detrimental effects. Remediation of the wastes generated by the industries has been carried out by several substances. The present research paper discusses with the use of soil microbial consortia for industrial waste bioremediation. Over the past decades studies have being emphasised on the use of microbial consortia rather than the use of individual strains, with increasing consideration given to environmental sustainability, with the aid of interdisciplinary approaches. An in-depth study has been carried out on the different microbes, used for remediation with special focus on soil microbial consortia. The manuscript also describes at length the benefits of the use of these microbes, different contaminants and wastes for which these have been tested, different kinds of microbial consortia explored, and the limitations and advantages associated with the use of these. The present work helps in understanding the use of microbial consortia as an efficient and promising biomaterial with an edge over other materials for industrial waste remediation. A brief study of the patents in the area of the use of soil microbial consortia has also been carried out in the present work. An analysis of the distribution of patents country-wise, technology main areas, patent publication trend, and top patent applicants and inventors has also been carried to give an idea of the patents pertaining to the application of soil microbial consortia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open green innovation is essential to accelerate decarbonization in Africa. The dearth of empirical evidence on the current trajectory of green innovation in Africa often hinders appropriate green innovation policy design. This study investigates the incidence of collaboration in inventive activities within Africa using the ‘designation of the inventor’ in the online European Patent database. We identify and assess open and closed climate adaptation and mitigation inventions using explorative and network analysis techniques. Our research shows that even though climate change adaptation technologies are more valuable, climate change mitigation technologies are more responsive to open innovation. We also discovered that the number of green inventions is slightly increasing, but there are very few collaborative open green inventions in Africa as many of the inventions are closed. These results accentuate the fragmented national innovation systems in many African countries. The lack of collaboration and the disconnect between universities and firms shows that most African knowledge institutions have not evolved into vibrant sources of firm learning for national economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 2011 onwards, thanks to the Industry 4.0 concept referring to the fourth industrial revolution, different technologies have emerged with the main objective of achieving increased productivity. One of the main technologies related to Industry 4.0 is collaborative robots, also known as cobots, whose main feature is an intelligent real-time labor nexus between humans and robots respecting safety standards. Therefore, the aim of this research work is to identify, analyze and map the technological profile of collaborative robots through patents. The results obtained show that the number of patents in recent years has grown exponentially since 2016. The largest number of inventions are concentrated in China, led by different universities, research centers and companies. Other important countries, in terms of development, are Japan and Germany, however, the inventions are mainly led by one company, Fanuc Corporation and Kuka Roboter GmbH. Likewise, it is clear that the technological advances are mainly directed toward technological developments linked to manipulators and hand tools, specifically to safety accessories and program-controlled manipulators. The results of the research provide the community involved in the research and development of collaborative robotics with a solid conceptual review, as well as a current snapshot of the temporal evolution and specialization in the technological field of inventions, obtaining intelligence information about Collaborative Robot technology to support R&D strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent is military technology innovation emergent? This study answers this question by applying an emergence detection algorithm to roughly 300,000 technical terms extracted from military technology patents granted from 1980 to 2019. Emergence – instances of sudden and rapid growth of a technical term within the military patent corpus – is found to vary greatly over time. Military technology innovation during the period of 1996-2008 is found to be highly emergent. This period was found to be characterized by high organization-type diversity; non-traditional vendors, traditional defense contractors, large civilian-facing firms, and individuals generated military patents containing many novel emergent technical terms. However, in recent years, military technology innovation has exhibited markedly less emergence. The period of low emergence is characterized by reduced contributions by non-traditional vendors, defense prime contractors, and individual inventors to military patents containing emergent terms. These observations suggest that policies attempting to ensure a healthy defense innovation ecosystem should seek organization-type diversity and may benefit from employing promotion strategies targeted at distinct organization types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A five-membered heterocyclic compound known as 1,2,4-oxadiazole has one oxygen, two carbon, and two nitrogen atoms within a ring. Numerous studies have shown that 1,2,4-oxadiazole has the potential as a useful pharmacophore in many harmful pharmacological conditions such as microbiocidal, anti-inflammatory, anti-tuberculosis, Meibomian gland dysfunction, etc. In this present review, we highlighted the synthetic protocols (based on the starting substrate) for 1,2,4-oxadiazoles which have been adopted in the last nine years (2015 to 2023). The study also involved a listing of several patents (granted) which comprised important work on 1,2,4-oxadiazole and its derivatives. Among all the methods, the most commonly adopted synthetic methods included the synthesis of 1,2,4-oxadiazoles from amidoxime, nitriles, chloroximes, benzaldehyde, vinyl benzene, benzamides, etc. These synthetic protocols have also been compared based on different reaction conditions, feasibility, and economy to help the researchers in designing their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a novel evaluation methodology for entity resolution algorithms. It is motivated by PatentsView.org, a public-use patent data exploration platform that disambiguates patent inventors using an entity resolution algorithm. We provide a data collection methodology and tailored performance estimators that account for sampling biases. Our approach is simple, practical, and principled—key characteristics that allow us to paint the first representative picture of PatentsView's disambiguation performance. The results are used to inform PatentsView's users of the reliability of the data and to allow the comparison of competing disambiguation algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Director of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)'s Traditional Knowledge Division, Wend Wendland, shares his expertise in Indigenous Intellectual Property (IP) Rights. He introduces major IP instruments supporting Indigenous rights, and comments on significance of these instruments for the work of libraries and information professionals. He also shares current developments at WIPO that mark a major point in the history of IP policy and reflects on possible impact on these developments on Indigenous communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unaipon descendant, Kym Kropinyeri, had promised to Unaipon and other Ngarrindjeri elders that he would pass on their history, including accounts of what happened to them at Point McLeay mission. This article addresses the Unaipon inventions. We provide a comprehensive account of Unaipon's patent applications and the Protection-era restrictions that impacted Aboriginal inventors. The fate of Unaipon's much celebrated 1909 shearing patent is fully explored. Exploitation of this invention is contextualised with reference to the patent activities of one of the most successful twentieth-century agricultural conglomerates that sold shearing handpieces, Cooper Engineering Ltd (Aust). Unaipon's claim he was ripped off is considered in light of the demands made on him by the Chief Protector, politicians, religious groups, museum staff, and harassment by mission superintendents and police. All these factors impacted the capacity of Unaipon to pursue his scientific interests and delivered him into poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Osteoarthritis is considered a degenerative joint disease that is characterised by inflammation, chronic pain, and functional limitation. The increasing development of nanotechnology in drug delivery systems has provided new ideas and methods for osteoarthritis therapy. This review aimed to evaluate patents that have developed innovations, therapeutic strategies, and alternatives using nanotechnology in osteoarthritis treatment. The results show patents deposited from 2015 to November 2021 in the online databases European Patent Office and World Intellectual Property Organisation. A total of 651 patents were identified for preliminary assessment and 16 were selected for full reading and discussion. The evaluated patents are focused on the intraarticular route, oral route, and topical route for osteoarthritis treatment. The intraarticular route presented a higher patent number, followed by the oral and topical routes, respectively. The development of new technologies allows us to envision a promising and positive future in osteoarthritis treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Social contract is one of the most common schemes for justifying patents. According to this theory, inventors obtain a commercial exclusivity in exchange for the disclosure of the invention, with the final aim of allowing others to use that knowledge in future innovations. Under the rationale of this social contract theory of patents, if a patent system is not guided by impartiality in its decisions, the relation between disclosure of inventions and future innovation becomes an issue, because non-merit factors in patent examination influence the quality of the knowledge disclosed. The aim of this article is to analyse impartiality in patent systems and, by doing so, defend that there is an epistemic side on both impartiality and social contract theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional and academic debates have intensified regarding the recent efforts to claim inventorship of AI-related patent applications, as has notably been seen in the known cases of Thaler v Comptroller ('DABUS') that have been examined in various jurisdictions. The pertinent question that has emerged is whether artificial intelligence systems can independently produce patentable subject matter. What has to be looked at, first, is the preliminary question of what the claim of producing inventions 'autonomously' can possibly mean under a technological perspective – an essential stage in the debate that is usually bypassed in legal commentary. Once such a technological explanation has been provided, a legal question can reasonably arise as to whether an AI process, such as software, may make a contribution that rewards a patent. AI inventions are legally approached and analysed as processes and as to their relationship with their direct products. Thus, where a process (AI) 'creates' or 'makes' a product, the focus is reasonably put on if and to what extent disclosing the product can provide a contribution separate to that which has already been provided by the process that created it. It is stressed that the current push for AI-generated products bypasses this key question which is essential in assessing the invention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology opportunity analysis (TOA) is of great help to technology innovation and R&D strategy of enterprises. Most previous studies of TOA only focused on scientific research or technology development phases, seldom linking technology opportunities to business applications. Using both patent and trademark data, we focused on the linkage of technology and business areas and discovered technology opportunities based on firms' existing technology base. First, we extracted common product keywords from two data sources to construct document-keyword matrices. Then, we matched patents and trademarks with common keywords to build the relevancy network between technology and the business areas. Finally, we discovered technology opportunities from potential undeveloped business areas, taking into account technology-business relevancy and firms' technology base. We conducted a case study on 3D printing to test our method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of "knocking off" the work of others has been an integral practice of the United States ready-to-wear industry since the 1890s. In the 1930s, the Fashion Originators Guild of America (FOGA) created an internal system to protect its members' design work, but in 1941 this system was declared in restraint of trade, and the next best protection option laid in the US design patent system. This research examines the 4,523 dress patents issued in the United States between 1936 and 1942, focusing on the designers and/or manufacturers represented and the process and timing of patent applications. Analysis of select court cases of design patent infringement, including a case study of a patent for "The Perfect Dress" by leading FOGA member and ready-to-wear dress manufacturer Samuel Zahn, demonstrates the difficulty of protecting a patented dress design and the complicated nature of what constituted an original design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is an open question of whether patent thickets coincide or differ across jurisdictions. Taking Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) technology as an example, this paper applies the social network analysis method to study the diversity and coincidence of patent thickets. The evolution of patent thicket density in the USA has a similar pattern with Europe and Japan, but it differs from China, Germany and South Korea. This paper uses the degree centrality, which is the number of one node directly connecting to the other nodes in a given network, to explore the patent thicket structure. We find critical multinational companies with higher degree centrality coincides across patent thickets, while most patentees with lower degree centrality do not co-occur in other patent thickets. The diversity of patent thickets implies companies should implement differential patent strategies in various markets. In contrast, the coincidence means patent holders who co-occurred in different patent thickets could be potential patent licensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultured meat (CM) has emerged as a breakthrough technology, which has the potential to minimise future negative impacts associated with the rapidly growing world population; such as serious environmental, sustainability, global public health, and animal welfare concerns. Recently numerous researchers in academia and companies have been putting significant efforts into scientific and translational development in this field. Since various pillars of CM manufacturing hold substantial translational potential, there has been a steady interest in filing patent applications globally in the past decade. For the first time, we have performed a patentometric analysis for cultured meat by highlighting the current patents landscape, determining prolific organisations and geographical locations active in the area, and identifying the overall outlook for the field. In total, > 190 patents published in the English language were collected from 1997 to 2020 for the analysis. Relevant data were extracted from the patents, including technology focus, country of origin, assignees, priority date, cooperative patent classification (CPC) code, to analyse the current patent landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This patent review encapsulates information that could be used as a reference by researchers in the fields of coatings and interfaces, biofabrication, tissue engineering, biomaterials, and biomedical engineering, as well as those especially interested in the formulation of hydrogel coatings. The state has been reviewed by introducing what has been innovated, invented, and patented in relation to hydrogel coatings. A detailed analysis of the patentability of hydrogel applications, such as the coating of medical devices to enhance their clinical performance, has been provided. During a search, 2937 patent documents were found. 2012 was the year with the most patent documents (177). Based on the patent classification, all patent documents and most inventions are intended for biomaterials for coating prostheses characterized by their function or physical properties, such as macromolecular materials, hydrogels, and biologically active materials. Additionally, research based on medicinal formulations with unique physical forms is concentrated in the majority of patents, according to knowledge clusters and expert driving factors. Finally, to demonstrate the innovation trends in hydrogel-based coatings, a selection of relevant patent applications and granted patents is proposed at the end of this paper, along with some examples of commercial products based on the patented technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how regions develop new innovation specializations, covering different activities in the whole process from technological invention to commercialization. We develop a conceptual framework anchored in two building blocks: first, the conceptualization of innovation as a process spanning technology, design, and market activities; second, the application and extension of the principle of relatedness to understand developments within and between the different innovation activities. We offer an empirical investigation where we operationalize the different innovation activities using three intellectual property rights: patents, industrial designs, and trademarks. We provide two separate analyses of how relatedness and cross-relatedness matter for the emergence of new specializations: for 259 NUTS-2 European regions and for 363 metropolitan statistical areas of the US. While relatedness is significantly associated with new regional specializations for all three innovation activities, cross-relatedness between activities also plays a significant role. Our study has important policy implications for developing and monitoring smart specialization regional strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an examination of how investors in the corporate bond market in emerging economies react to patents. To empirically explore this question, we constructed a sample of 1862 Chinese corporate bonds issued between 2004 and 2020 and gathered data on Chinese domestic patents, reverse innovation patents, and the validity of patents. The empirical results suggest that domestic patents are the primary source of information for bond investors in China when evaluating corporate innovation and that investors can successfully discern between patents that are valid and those that are not. At the same time, the positive relationship between corporate innovation and bond prices is found to be negatively moderated by credit ratings and state ownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The automotive industry faces the challenge of digital transformation at present, especially the autonomous vehicle. To explore the innovation links between different regional innovation systems, this study proposed a theoretical framework combining actor network, regional innovation and open innovation systems. Through the social network analysis and non-parametric test of patent data, the research findings show many significant differences between Europe and China. Finally, some suggestions are provided for strategy planning and policy implementation of open innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patents in information and communication technologies (ICTs) are important instruments for protecting companies' inventions and to appropriate the value of the related inventions. However, the increasing dynamics and complexity in ICTs are challenging the effectiveness of patents. Based on a review of the literature and interviews with relevant stakeholders in Europe, we have identified the most relevant challenges for patents in ICT and possible solutions. These insights have been used as input in framing our broad survey among European stakeholders. The results reveal on the one hand the differences between the patent owners and stakeholders owning no patents, in particular with regards to the various challenges the patent system is facing. On the other hand, the differences disappear in the assessment of the effectiveness of the various solutions. Finally, we conclude with a summary of our main findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Martin Fredriksson's article focuses on India's Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) towards the protection of traditional knowledge (TK). Fredriksson has also connected the genesis and context of TKDL to various irrelevant aspects that include religion and politics. Fredriksson's narration and inferences on TKDL are also drawn from a selection of referenced literature, with some of the cited text being subjective in nature. We object to certain contentious statements and inferences about TKDL and India made therein. We welcome the invitation from Third World Quarterly to provide our response to the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patents are often studied as signals that convey invaluable insights into a firm's inventive capabilities, aiding in the reduction of knowledge asymmetries between the firm and external investors. Yet, most researchers examine patents as providing a single positive signal. We argue patents provide multiple and possibly countervailing signals; some characteristics may increase perceived knowledge asymmetries, while others decrease perceived knowledge asymmetries. We provide evidence patent characteristics provide multiple signals, impacting investors' perceived knowledge asymmetries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological advances in tea production are critical to meet global demands for tea consumption. To illuminate differences in the scientific and commercial relevance of research programs between major tea-related research organizations around the world, we conducted a bibliometric analysis comparing the scientific outputs, including peer-reviewed publications and patents, of six major research organizations published between January 01, 2008 and July 11, 2020. For this competitive ranking analysis, we examined a number of papers, research topics, academic influence, capacity for development, capacity for collaboration, and capacity for technological innovation. Among the six research organizations, Anhui Agricultural University (in China) had the most publications, while the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Tea Research Institute showed a higher capacity for development. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (in India) and the University of Shizuoka (Japan) both showed high academic influence, while the University of Shizuoka, Tea Research Association Tocklai and National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (Japan) showed a high capacity for collaboration. The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Tea Research Institute applied for the most patents, while the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research applied for the most international patents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to analyse how human resources for Industry-University collaboration achieves technology transfer and start-up development through three collaboration outputs (funding from Industry, research paper publication, patent applications, and registrations). The results of this empirical study showed that human resources for Industry-University linkage had a significant positive effect on funding from Industry, research paper publication, patent development, technology transfer and start-up development. Furthermore, funding from industry had a positive effect on research paper and patent applications and registrations. Additionally, patents had a positive effect on technology transfer and start-up creation development, while research paper development had a positive effect on technology transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adulteration of edible substances is a potent contemporary food safety issue. Perhaps the overt concern derives from the fact that adulterants pose serious ill effects on human health. Edible oils are one of the most adulterated food products. Perpetrators are adopting ways and means that effectively masks the presence of the adulterants from human organoleptic limits and traditional oil adulteration detection techniques. This review embodies a detailed account of chemical, biosensors, chromatography, spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, non-thermal plasma, dielectric spectroscopy research carried out in the area of falsification assessment of edible oils for the past three decades and a collection of patented oil adulteration detection techniques. The detection techniques reviewed have some advantages and certain limitations, chemical tests are simple; biosensors and nuclear magnetic resonance are rapid but have a low sensitivity; chromatography and spectroscopy are highly accurate with a deterring price tag; dielectric spectroscopy is rapid can be portable and has on-line compatibility; however, the results are susceptible to variation of electric current frequency and intrinsic factors (moisture, temperature, structural composition). This review paper can be useful for scientists or for knowledge seekers eager to be abreast with edible oil adulteration detection techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the evolutionary mechanisms of the inter-firm collaborative innovation network in the Korean ICT industry, focusing on inter-firm homophily. Using firm network data based on a joint patent from 1980 to 2015, this study reveals that firms participate in collaborative innovation primarily to complement their technological resources. Also, the collaborative innovation network among Korean ICT firms has evolved mainly by homophily mechanisms and has limited expandability. The findings suggest that the government can promote SMEs' participation in collaborative innovation by concentrating on supporting the development of technological capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article empirically examines how relative exploration affects high-tech companies’ initial public offering (IPO) performance. Analysis of data from 225 high-tech companies listed in the SSE Sci-Tech innovation board (SSE STAR) market shows that high-tech companies with high exploratory innovation tend to generate inferior IPO performance compared to those with high exploitative innovation. Further, we explore the moderating effects of political ties and university cooperation from the triple helix perspective. Results suggest that political ties and university cooperation can alleviate the negative relationship between relative exploration and IPO performance. These findings contribute to the literature on how exploration-exploitation affects external financing by integrating exploration-exploitation and triple helix interactions research. These offer important practical implications for high-tech companies in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological competition between firms has changed from ordinary to generic technology (hereinafter, GT) innovation with the increasing complementarity and shareability of technology in the field of emerging technologies. While facing the R&D dilemmas and market failure of GT and its R&D process, here comes the question: who are contributing to the GT R&D in the process of building emerging technology knowledge systems? Using social network analysis and a patent panel dataset of 380 strategic emerging firms, our study empirically examines how patent cooperation networks influence the R&D performance of GT, and the moderating effect of alliance heterogeneity. We found that: (1) The network scale and network centrality of patent cooperation networks have a positive and significant impact on the R&D performance of GT, and the latter one shows a greater impact, while the network density of patent cooperation networks shows a negative and significant impact on the R&D performance of GT. (2) Alliance heterogeneity plays a positive moderating role between the network scale and R&D performance of GT, while the moderating effect turns to be negative between the network density/network centrality of patent cooperation networks and R&D performance of GT. Our study contributes lay a foundation for strategic decision-making and government promotion of GT R&D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a country, the United States spends significantly more on healthcare than other advanced industrialized countries, and Americans have comparably worse health outcomes. Both are developments of the last four decades. In this paper, we look at how change in antitrust and patent law and thus change in market power in the largest four subsectors of healthcare, hospitals, physician groups, prescription drugs, and net medical insurance, have contributed to the increasing cost of medical care in the United States. We show that the annual rent – the degree to which health care is overpriced as a result of market power – was between 2.47 and 4.30 percent of GDP in 2016 – truly a big cost for big medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and technological advances are currently a new paradigm with ample potential to provide therapeutic solutions to multiple diseases. The purpose of this study was to survey granted patents related to biopharmaceutical products. The most important results show that most of these inventions are concentrated in the United States, and European and Asian countries, and that US companies are the clear leaders in this area of knowledge, reaffirming its position as one of the most important technological markets in the world. Additionally, the technological classes, established according to search criteria, that have shown the most progress over time has to do with medicinal preparations containing antigens or antibodies, as well as those associated with peptides. Finally, the role of the Latin American market is not relevant for the production of this group of technologies; consequently, it is important to define strategies for their inclusion in countries in the region and to promote cooperation in terms of research and development. This course of action will provide the region with the possibility of increasing technological capabilities that will allow it to innovate within the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the impact of university-industry collaborative research with different dimensions on university patent commercialisation and offer suggestions to promote patent commercialisation. University-industry collaborative research is measured by the university-industry collaborative patent application. Collaboration breadth and depth are defined. The theories about the impacts of the collaboration breadth and depth on university patent commercialisation are analysed and the hypotheses are proposed accordingly. We explore the impacts by negative binomial regression with the panel data set constructed from the patent data of the 'double first-class' universities in China during 2015–2017. Results show that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the collaboration breadth and the university patent commercialisation. Nevertheless, the collaboration depth has no impact on university patent commercialisation. And surprisingly, the interaction of breadth and depth shows a negative impact on it. Suggestions are offered that universities should avoid collaborating with industry inordinately and pay attention to balance breadth and depth of the collaboration with industry, improving the quality of the collaboration and promoting patent commercialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patent pricing is the core issue in patent industrialisation. This paper uses game theory to study the effects of auction behaviours when the members of the patent portfolio are auctioned either together or separately. A comparison of patent product yields the results (1) the outputs of a patented product are lower in a packaged auction than in a separate auction, and the outputs of the two auction modes decrease as the correlation between patent members increases; (2) the profits of package portfolios are higher under packaged auctions than under separate auctions, and an enterprise's profit is negatively related to the correlation between the patent members; (3) when a patent portfolio is subjected to separate auction, the product outputs under Stackelberg equilibrium in a game are higher than that under static equilibrium, and the product outputs in the Stackelberg equilibrium decrease with the correlation between patent members; and (4) when the members of a patent portfolio are auctioned separately, the profits in the Stackelberg equilibrium and static equilibrium are related to the correlation between patent portfolio members; the profits in the Stackelberg equilibrium will first decrease and then increase as the correlation between patent portfolio members increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patents are essential for university technology diffusion to society; however, patent quality in universities, especially in Latin America, has been poorly studied. We create a quality index for patents granted to regional universities by using patent quality variables as patent production, technical relevance, use of top knowledge, technological scope, cooperation, and internationalization. Results show that, on average, Brazilian universities had higher quality than their peers in other countries and that Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá occupies the first position of the ranking for 2016. The main contribution of this paper is to create the first Index for patent quality at universities in the region, and for what we know, the first country aggregated measure of patent quality for universities. This nobel measure is related to research quality in Scopus and Web of Science databases and can be used to complement international university rankings to measure a dimension not previously used by those rankings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Breakthroughs in biotechnology, globalizing intellectual property rights legislations, and growing venture capital in the past thirty years have given rise to new forms of capitalist accumulation that scholars called biocapitalism. Bioscientific knowledge under biocapitalism is increasingly parceled out from a global common to private enclosures for biotech and pharmaceutical companies, contributing to vast inequalities and fractures of global access to innovation evident in the COVID-19 pandemic. The assetization and financialization of knowledge have shifted the ground of innovation from competitive commodity production and exchanges to generating, managing, and commercializing patents and associated monopoly rights, thus raising the challenges of innovation for those developing countries specialized in production. Many Asian countries have invested heavily in biomedical sciences to enhance their knowledge assets but had limited success in translating the scientific development to a globally significant biomedical industry. This article discusses the evolution of China's biomedical industry from a technological laggard to a recent innovation boom after a regulatory overhaul in 2015. Analyzing the patent collaborative networks of China's biomedical industry since 2003, we found the central roles of domestic public research institutions, in contrast to multinational corporations, as cutting-edge knowledge providers. We argue that China's path of the biomedical industry is distinct from its other technology industries that rely on multinational corporations for core knowledge. It represents a national articulation in response to global biocapitalism by situating the domestic research institutions and biomedical firms at the center of knowledge assets production and engaging globally in the science and drug regulatory systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the synthesis of a new thiazole derivative using a novel and economic synthetic route is described. This compound has antitumor, antimicrobial, and larvicidal properties. It is worth noting that the synthesized thiazole has been patented [No. US 10,501,426 B1; date of patent: December 10, 2019]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effectively identifying technological threats from competitors and assessing their possible impact directly affects the company's interests and security. This study proposes an early identification approach for technological threats based on patent portfolio analysis. The approach measures and aggregates three dimensions of analysis – technological maturity, technological similarity, and the technological capability gap between a company and its competitors – in a range of technological fields. The novelty of this approach is that it uses patent portfolios to evaluate the level of technological threats faced by companies and to identify technological fields associated with high threat levels. The empirical research results show that this approach has the following advantages (1) it can address the shortcomings of previous studies that identified technological threats on the basis of a single dimension. (2) It is possible to evaluate the level of technological threats faced by the company in a variety of technological fields at the same time. (3) This approach is capable of determining the causes of technological threats faced by a company in each technological field and of providing effective decision-making support for companies that need to formulate reasonable response strategies to counter technological threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempted to analyze and depict works on patent policy based on articles in Web of Science. The first search resulted in 1165 articles, which were filtered based on titles and abstracts, leaving 96 articles for analysis. The analysis was done using VOSviewer, including by-country, by-source, by-organization, by-author, by-document, and by-keyword analyses. The result indicated that the USA was the most productive country in publishing articles. The journal "Research Policy" was found to publish the most articles on patent policy. Regarding organizational affiliation, the majority of authors were affiliated to Academia Sinica Taiwan. Angus C. Chu was the most productive author with the strongest relationship with other authors. Patent policy research is mostly associated with innovation and economic growth and published mostly in Economic, Management, and Public Administration journal categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the collaboration dynamic among areas of knowledge and countries from 1975 to 2017 within the bioenergy field and from a complex network approach, as a driver for the evolution of technological frontiers and emerging paradigms, seeking opportunities for a transition to low carbon economies. The results provide detailed information on international collaboration from patent networks and the spatial distribution of bioenergy, from three perspectives of analysis: origin, development, and potential emerging paths. In addition, the evidence shows that advances in the bioenergy frontiers, more specifically in the biotechnology field, follow a pattern characterized by the intensification of both collaboration and interdependence among several areas of knowledge and countries. With this, we expect to stimulate the debate on innovation dynamics within a complex network perspective and to contribute to policymakers' decision support regarding bioeconomy innovation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]