Identifying emerging Research and Business Development (R&BD) areas based on topic modeling and visualization with intellectual property right data

Abstract

Although investments of R&D by government and firms have enlarged and the amount of patents has increased rapidly, R&D almost fails to commercialize for various reasons. For the purpose of decreasing failure rate of technology commercialization, it is important to identify emerging business based on technology in advance and establish appropriate strategy, leading to surviving at the market. Therefore, this paper aims to explore emerging Research and Business Development (R&BD) areas, and establish a business strategy based on valuable patents by comprehensively analyzing IPRs - patent as well as design and trademark. First, unrevealed but potential R&BD areas are explored by analyzing the relation between patent and trademark through topic modeling and network analysis, which aims to preferentially find potential business opportunities that can be implemented by new technology. Potential R&BD areas are recognized as the hidden link in the network of patents and trademarks. Second, emerging R&BD areas are selected by considering the status of the competition and markets through trademark analysis based on generative topographic mapping (GTM) after finding potential R&BD areas with network analysis from the viewpoint of the applicant for a trademark. Finally, new opportunities and strategies for successful R&BD are suggested by analyzing design patents that are representative of the appearance of a product in detail. The result of this study provides more concrete R&BD strategies within the framework of product and business development, based on relations between IPRs, which can be regarded as an initial study that comprehensively utilizes diverse kinds of IPRs.