TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION – ACTIVITY GROWTH OR DECLINE

4.13 TECHNOLOGY RANKING AND COMMERCIALISATION

This section moves this further by analyzing the major technical themes within the assistive devices and technologies for visually and hearing impaired persons landscape at the level of commercialization and investment.

It was stated earlier that there is a strong link between the number of different territories in which an individual application is filed and the level of monetary investment required. Put simply, the more countries in which protection is sought, the higher the level of expense, due to the multiplication of the number of legal counsel involved and the potential for expensive processes such as translation.

Metrics related to commercialization covering the high level topics in the dataset are highlighted below.

Definitions of each metric are summarized below.

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  Volume: The number of inventions that are accurately categorized into each high level topic.
  
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  Filing Breadth: Average Geographic filing breadth for each patent family i.e. average number of patents from different jurisdictions in the patent family.
  
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  Age Weighted Citation Impact Value: This value acts as a measure of impact in the field i.e. the average number of other patents that have cited a patent in each category (older patents have more opportunity to be cited, so this metric is adjusted to correct for patent age)
  
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  TR Strength Score: This is calculated based on aggregated measurements of the volume, filing breadth and age weighted citation values. The TR strength score is a unit less-value that allows entire patent portfolios to be ranked relative to one another.
  
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  Recency: The total amount of patent filings conducted within the last 5 years for each high level topic.
  
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  CAGR 07 – 11: details the activity trends within these high level topics, as measured by compound annual growth or decline in patent activity rates per topic between 2007 and 2011.
  

Figure 49 – Model Analysis of Major Subject Matter in Assistive Devices and Technologies for Visually and Hearing Impaired Persons Landscape; Compound Annual Growth versus Average Number of Offices of Subsequent Filing per Invention; Bubble Size reflects Volume of Patent Activity per Subject Area

Most high level topics fall into the top left hand corner of the chart. This shows that in general, vision assistance (2.1), hearing assistance (2.2), vision enhancement (3.1), hearing enhancement (3.2), additional related technology (4) and ‘other’ vision / hearing related technologies (5) have been filed in lower numbers geographically speaking.

There is a bright point however for vision assistance (2.1) and vision enhancement (3.1). Their CAGR values from 2007 - 2011 are positive indicating that there is increased patent activity occurring recently when compared to 5 years earlier. This may indicate that the current state of these technologies appears to be commercially unattractive, however in the coming years, if the increased patent activity trend continues; these technologies may start to ignite interest from commercial entities and become more commercially viable.

Vision restoration (1.1), in its current state, appears to avoid this commercial unattractive trend. It has a higher rate of geographic filing and overall has the highest strength score of all patent portfolios. This indicates that this technology area generally has a higher level of investment when compared to the other technology topics and appears to be more commercially attractive for entities to invest R&D in. It should be noted however that recent patent activity in this topic has decreased slightly as indicated by its CAGR value (-7%). This can potentially indicate that while this technology is presently more popular commercially, it may have peaked and could begin to lose this popularity in future years.

Hearing Restoration (1.2) appears to have the lowest rate of recent geographic filing and also has the largest drop in recent patent activity. This shows that this technology may have once been an attractive proposition commercially; however recently; it is well on the decline in terms of commercialization and its attractiveness to entities in the field.

Figure 50 – ‘Three Factor Analysis’ of Major Subject Matter in Assistive Devices and Technologies for Visually and Hearing Impaired Persons Landscape; Recency Vs Citation Impact Value; Bubble Size Reflects Volume of Patent Activity per Subject Area

The figure above highlights the major subject matter in the assistive devices and technologies for visually and hearing impaired person’s landscape based on citation impact value. This value acts as a measure of impact in the field i.e. the average number of other patents that have cited a patent in each category. Technology appearing in the top right hand corner of the chart indicates recently filed patents which have a high impact, or a higher perceived importance based on the number of citations associated with it.

The overall trend (the dotted line) is that generally, more recent innovative patent activity in has less impact in the field than older patent innovation. This technology has been around for over 30 years with the bulk of patent activity not being filed recently (last 5 years), therefore this trend is to be expected as older patents have more opportunity to be cited.

This chart once again highlights that vision restoration (1.1) appears to be the most commercially attractive technology appearing to have both a fairly high recently filed number of patent and a high citation impact value. Hearing enhancement (3.2) technology and additional related technology (4) have also performed well here indicating that although the patent activity in these fields has reduced in the last few years, the fundamental innovation contained within these patents is of a high innovative standard and has high commercial potential.

Hearing restoration (1.2) technology, once again scores poorly. It has the lowest value regarding recent patent activity in the technology field in the assistive devices and technologies for visually and hearing impaired persons landscape. It also has the lowest citation impact value of all technologies. This shows that there appears to be less interest in this technology in general, perhaps because of a lack of recent innovation in the field due to this sub technology (on average) being a lot older than other technologies in this field or because entities have focused their efforts on other sub technology areas with a higher perceived commercial value.