Chemical and Engineering News Article on Patent Analysis Used to Indicate Top Enabler in Industrial Innovation

The online version of Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN) has a copy of the article which can be read by clicking here . The folks at CHI Research always manage to get very good press in the pages of C&EN and this article is no exception. Unfortunately, the article is a little light on the details of how CHI was able to come to their conclusion that the chemical sciences are in fact the muse for other technological innovations. A single paragraph from the article provides some insight into the research methodology used: "The firm tracked the patenting activity and citations of 1,151 companies in 15 industries in 29 different kinds of technologies. The data indicate that all 15 industries create chemical technology, Albert reported. In addition, chemical technology underpins technology in a broad range of industries. And papers in chemistry are more central to the science base of those industries than any other discipline. " where Albert is Michael Albert a Vice President at CHI. Apparently the study is ongoing and the tidbits discussed in the article are from an update given to the members of the Council for Chemical Research at their annual meeting. The finished study is expected to be released in 2004. It would certainly be nice to see some additional details on exactly how the different industries and technologies were defined and what sort of citation analysis was actually performed. There is a chart provided at the conclusion of the article but frankly it doesn't appear to say much given the ambiguities on how technologies and industries are defined. There is also a hint that part of the study looked at citation of non-patent literature (aka journals and books) as well. This type of analysis also begs some explanation since non-patent citation habits of different industries may vary a great deal (Part of a subject that is near and dear to a certain individual with the initials G.A. that lives in the Bay Area). Again, without seeing details, it is hard to say how valid these study results are. It is nice however seeing patent analysis techniques getting some attention in the press.
Posted: Tue - April 22, 2003 at 10:39 PM   Patinformatics   Vendor News   Email Comments