Using the patent co-citation approach to establish a new patent classification system

The paper proposes a new approach to create a patent classification system to replace the IPC or UPC system for conducting patent analysis and management. The new approach is based on co-citation analysis of bibliometrics. The traditional approach for management of patents, which is based on either the IPC or UPC, is too general to meet the needs of specific industries. In addition, some patents are placed in incorrect categories, making it difficult for enterprises to carry out R&D planning, technology positioning, patent strategy-making and technology forecasting. Therefore, it is essential to develop a patent classification system that is adaptive to the characteristics of a specific industry. The analysis of this approach is divided into three phases. Phase I selects appropriate databases to conduct patent searches according to the subject and objective of this study and then select basic patents. Phase II uses the co-cited frequency of the basic patent pairs to assess their similarity. Phase III uses factor analysis to establish a classification system and assess the efficiency of the proposed approach. The main contribution of this approach is to develop a patent classification system based on patent similarities to assist patent manager in understanding the basic patents for a specific industry, the relationships among categories of technologies and the evolution of a technology category. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.