Investigating technological evolution of mobile telecommunication industry by integrating dynamic competitive analysis and patent analysis

This study attempts to invest evolution technological development and competitive situation of mobile telecommunication industry by the use of patent analysis from the perspective of dynamic competitive. The four-step framework of dynamic competitive theory proposed by Chen in 2008 is adapted to investigate dynamic evolution of eight firms in mobile telecommunication industry, i.e. Apple, Samsung, Sony, Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, HTC and BlackBerry. More specifically, important elements in dynamic competitive theory such as actor, responder and industry competitive environment are analyzed by the insights obtained from patenting behaviors and patent characteristics of the eight firms. The results obtained from the research provides several contributions: 1) developing a new approach integrating dynamic competitive indicators and patent analysis; 2) understanding overall competitive trend of mobile telecommunication industry; 3) proposing a research approach which allows to correlate among patent characteristics, technological evolution and dynamic competitive.