Use of a new patent text-mining and visualization method for identifying patenting patterns over time: Concept, method and test application

Understanding the evolution of a technological field in the course of time is a key task in technology analysis. Analysts in research institutions as well as in companies need to know which topics are relevant for the respective technological field, which are the emerging topics, which traditional topics have been deepened in the course of time and which have been abandoned. For this purpose we suggest a patent lane analysis. Patent lanes can be seen as the deployment of patent clusters in the course of time. We use a method based on semantic similarities to develop patent lanes. A case study focuses on the application of carbon fibers in bicycle technology; it is used to demonstrate our method, i.e. to establish patent lanes in this case and characterize them by multiple use of a Tf idf measure. Despite some limitations, patent lanes enable deep insights into the development of patent-friendly technological fields. •A new patent text-mining and visualization method is proposed.•It helps for identifying patenting and technological patterns over time.•It also offers insights in competitive structures of an industry.•The method is demonstrated by the case of carbon fiber reinforcements for bicycle technology.