Ranking patent assignee performance by h-index and shape descriptors

We propose a geometric interpretation to the ranking of patent assignees by their h-indices as indicating the relative positions of their rank-citation curves. We then propose two shape descriptors characterizing the rank-citation curves over the h-cores and h-tails, respectively. Together with the h-indices, the shape descriptors help verifying the geometric relationship among rank-citation curves and the relative performance among the assignees’ h-cores and h-tails. The geometric interpretation and shape descriptors are proven by empirical data to be reliable, accurate, robust, flexible, and insightful, and their application could be extended to research performance evaluation as well.