Classification of citations between patents on the basis of their functions

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 21K12592
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 90020:Library and information science, humanistic and social informatics-related
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: Yoshikane Fuyuki 筑波大学, 図書館情報メディア系, 教授 (30353428)
• Project Period (FY): 2021-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 図書館情報学 / 情報図書館学 / 引用分析 / 科学社会学 / 科学計量学 / 計量情報学 / 計量書誌学 / 引用分類

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Patent citations were categorized from multiple perspectives, including the functional perspective. However, as a result of investigating time-series changes in the distribution of citation types (i.e., categories in classification) from the perspective of the function of citations, no clear trend of change was observed in the distribution of citation relationships between documents.
On the other hand, some trends over time were observed in the relationships between research areas of documents. For example, in the field of environmental science, although the number of directly connected areas has not changed significantly, the cohesiveness of the relationships between areas has become stronger. Given the increasing popularity of cross-disciplinary research and development, it was suggested that it is difficult to identify bibliographic features that are closely related to patterns of changes in the types of patent citations unless we also pay attention to such characteristics of fields.

Free Research Field

図書館情報学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

特許の特性に関する分析において，経済的価値でなく，引用関係が表す技術・知識の系譜における位置づけに注目している研究は未だ少ない。特許間引用に着目することで，短期的に利益を上げるというより，長期的視野のもとで研究開発を活性化させるための示唆（学術研究の技術革新への影響に関する，研究機関・国の科学技術政策への示唆）が得られると期待できる。
特に，特許の機能的な引用種別を調査し，それらの類型化を通して俯瞰的な概念・観点整理を行い，それらの観点から特許の特徴を明らかにすることにより，知財戦略や研究開発戦略に資する知見が得られると期待できる。