This proposal aims to: (1) conduct an international patent analysis for two product technologies that are believed to be in the growth stage of the life cycle, (2) identify non-patent technology indicators that can be collected for analysis at the level of a specific technology and collect them for the two technologies, (3) look for correlations between the patent and non-patent indicators, (4) determine the life cycle stage of the technologies using patent indicators and forecast future technological activity, 5) look for correlations between the number of subsequent patent citations and other indicators of importance or value, and determine whether the importance of an invention can be predicted early in its life, (6) review and assess models of technological innovation and technological evolution for whether they can be supported with patent data. The proposal's commercial objective is to develop decisionmaking tools based on this research.
