De‐Bottlenecking Open Innovation: Turning Patent‐Based Technology Network Analysis into Value

Open Innovation (OI), namely the identification of both new opportunities and prospective internal and external partners. This chapter begins with an exploration of ideas and enriching them with quantitative data derived from internal and external networks and competence maps. It describes how promising new technologies and best‐in‐class candidates for co‐development can be identified. The chapter reviews the extant methods of patent analysis and data mining. It provides an insight into novel methods for patent analytics with a special focus on OI. Each example is described briefly and supported by flow charts and special graphics. The chapter focuses on the topics of patent dynamics, emerging technology analysis, geographic proximity, and collaboration networks. It shows how state‐of‐the‐art patent analysis holds the potential to assist throughout the whole innovation chain. The chapter provides a special case study on the setup of an OI project on nanotechnology.