TY - JOUR
T1 - Identifying the trends in wound-healing patents for successful investment strategies
AU - Gwak, Jae Ha
AU - Sohn, So Young
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Gwak, Sohn.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Copyright:
Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/3
Y1 - 2017/3
N2 - Background Recently, the need for rapid wound-healing has significantly increased because of the increasing number of patients who are diagnosed with diabetes and obesity. These conditions have contributed to a surge in the number of patients with chronic wounds worldwide. Furthermore, many cost-effective wound-healing technologies have been developed in order to keep up with the increased demand. In this paper, we performed a quantitative study of the trends associated with wound-healing technologies using patent data. Methodology We analyzed the trends considering four different groups of patent applicants: firms, universities, research institutes, and individuals using a structural topic model. In addition, we analyzed the knowledge flow between patent applicants using citation analysis, and confirmed the role of applicants in the knowledge-flow network using k-means clustering. As a result, the primary wound-healing technology patents applied for by the four groups varied considerably, and we classified the roles of patent applicants were found in the knowledge-flow network. Conclusions Our results showed the organizations that are leading each area of wound-healing technology. Furthermore, from the results, we identified specific institutions that are efficient for spreading knowledge related to wound-healing technology based on the patents. This information can contribute to the planning of investment strategies and technology policies related to wound-healing.
AB - Background Recently, the need for rapid wound-healing has significantly increased because of the increasing number of patients who are diagnosed with diabetes and obesity. These conditions have contributed to a surge in the number of patients with chronic wounds worldwide. Furthermore, many cost-effective wound-healing technologies have been developed in order to keep up with the increased demand. In this paper, we performed a quantitative study of the trends associated with wound-healing technologies using patent data. Methodology We analyzed the trends considering four different groups of patent applicants: firms, universities, research institutes, and individuals using a structural topic model. In addition, we analyzed the knowledge flow between patent applicants using citation analysis, and confirmed the role of applicants in the knowledge-flow network using k-means clustering. As a result, the primary wound-healing technology patents applied for by the four groups varied considerably, and we classified the roles of patent applicants were found in the knowledge-flow network. Conclusions Our results showed the organizations that are leading each area of wound-healing technology. Furthermore, from the results, we identified specific institutions that are efficient for spreading knowledge related to wound-healing technology based on the patents. This information can contribute to the planning of investment strategies and technology policies related to wound-healing.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0174203
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0174203
M3 - Article
C2 - 28306732
AN - SCOPUS:85016015436
VL - 12
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 3
M1 - e0174203
ER -