Technology convergence among various technical fields: improvement of entropy estimation in patent analysis

Wenjing Zhu (), Bohong Ma () and Lele Kang ()
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Wenjing Zhu: Nanjing University
Bohong Ma: Nanjing University
Lele Kang: Nanjing University

Scientometrics, 2022, vol. 127, issue 12, No 46, 7750 pages

Abstract: Abstract Recent years have witnessed rapid and widespread technology convergence (TC) in various technical fields. Researchers often focus on developing new methods to identify TC in a specific field without studying the temporal trend of TC and comparing it among different fields. To fill the research gap, this study extends the literature to examine TC in 35 technical fields with 49,687,173 patents from 2000 to 2018. Interestingly, the analysis results show that Shannon, Tsallis, and Renyi entropies, as the indicators of TC, perform differently in describing temporal trends in TC. Further investigation shows that Shannon entropy cannot well depict the incremental trend of TC as single-field patents increased steeply. Thus, Tsallis entropy is used to analyze TC in the study. And we further analyze the complementary (CTC) and substitutability (STC) technology convergence of four representative technical fields. The results show CTC and STC are heterogeneous in the industrial development stage. Industries represent a high level of CTC and a low level of STC in early R&D stage, while STC increases significantly during industrial development. This study contributes to the literature by clarifying the measurements for TC and identifying CTC and STC in various industries.

Keywords: Shannon entropy; Tsallis entropy; Renyi entropy; Complementary technology convergence; Substitutability technology convergence; Patent analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/s11192-022-04557-6

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