Dynamic and quantitative exploration on technology evolution mechanism: The case of electrical conducting polymer nanocomposite

This study aims to obtain global overview on electrical conducting polymer nanocomposite development along time horizon as well as to obtain dynamic and quantitative exploration on technology evolution mechanism, a total of 1421 electrical conducting polymer related nanocomposite patents are retrieved from USPTO patent database and patent citation network is generated by combing both patent citation and social network analysis. A patent citation network can therefore be visually obtained and network properties, e.g. degree centrality, betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, representing several technology evolution mechanisms are calculated. Each patent can be positioned at a specific location of the patent citation network and technology evolution mechanisms for each patent can be quantitatively analyzed.