Patent landscaping using 'green' technological trajectories
Önder Nomaler & Bart Verspagen
#2021-005
We present a number of green technology patent landscaping exercises,
based on a method that we developed earlier to identify the main
technological trends in a very large (i.e., universal) patent citation
network comprising all patented technologies. This method extracts a
so-called network of main paths, where we interpret each path as a
technological trajectory in the sense of Dosi (1982). We use
co-occurrence on the technological trajectories as the main metric to
build a network of technological relations, with green/non-green, the
technology class (4-digit IPC classes) and geographical location
(countries) as the main dimensions along which we observe green
technology. The technology landscaping exercise visualises these
networks. In this way, we draw a detailed map of green technologies
(along with the particular non-green technologies that contribute
thereto or benefit therefrom), in which we find both very broad and
general areas (such as ICT or medical and health), and specific green
technologies, such as batteries, wind power and electric vehicles. In
the geography- based map, we find specific European and non-European
areas. In all our landscaping maps, non-green technologies play a large
role, indicating that sectoral and geographical progress in greentech
cannot be fully understood independently of developments in particular
fields of non-greentech technologies.
Keywords: green technology; technological trajectories; patent
citations; patent landscaping
JEL Classification: O31, O33, Q55