Technological advances in the fuel cell vehicle: Patent portfolio management

With the shift from an industry-based society to a knowledge-based one, there has been a gradual increase in the importance of intangible assets such as technologies and information. Patents are a representative intellectual outcome of intangible assets and can be used as an objective measure of the level of technology or innovation of individuals, firms, and countries. In addition, patents can be regarded as a rich source of data for the provision of technological and commercial information. Patent data facilitate research on technological advances and innovation; hence, an analysis of this data can provide important insights into innovation activity and technology management strategies. This paper presents a method for extracting core technologies from core fuel cell vehicle (FCV) patents registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office by using a data mining technique. Core patents are determined by analyzing patent citations, and the data mining technique identifies those firms with core FCV technologies and reveals the overall research focus of the firms by deriving patent portfolios and and technology recommendations considering the extracted core technologies.