Nanotechnology - An Analysis based on Publications and Patents

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This report aims to provide a bibliometric and patent study of the field of nanoscience and technology (NST) in the period 1992-2001. The report consists of two parts, the first one analyses the scientific literature in this field, the second part is concerned with the analysis of patents issued in NST. A central element of bibliometric and patent research in an emerging field like NST is its delineation through a suitable search strategy.
For the bibliometric part which is based on the Web of Science, a hybrid strategy has been used, particularly, all papers published in the three core journals Nanotechnology, Nanobiology, and Nanostructured Materials have been selected. The second part of the search strategy was based on specific search strings. Search strings have been applied to keywords, title and abstract of papers not published in these core journals. NST proved to be an "umbrella" area with "components" from several fields in physics, chemistry, the life sciences and engineering sciences the structure of which has somewhat changed from physics towards chemistry.
Also for the patent part which is based on the USPTO and EPO databases, a hybrid search strategy has been applied. This strategy has been created at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (Karlsruhe). It is actually based on a combination of key words and selected IPC classes.

The bibliometric analysis shows a still exponential increase of literature although the speed has somewhat slowed down in the second half of the 90s. Although the citation impact of NST papers globally decreases slightly, the Relative Citation Rate of the world total significantly higher than 1 what may be interpreted as a sign that NST still is a rather emerging discipline.
First, publication output and citation impact of Flanders and the 45 most active countries and the 20 most active institutions in the world have been analysed. The next chapter analyses Flemish nanoscience and nanotechnology in the mirror of bibliometric indicators. Here a breakdown by those seven Flemish institutions that have published at least ten papers in the period 1992-2001 allows the bibliometric analysis at the institutional level. The next chapter is devoted to the study of the global collaboration network of research in nanoscience and -technology. Bibliometric data reflect a truly global collaboration in this field. Collaboration links form a global network in the two sub-periods, although the "density" has increased and the network is also characterised by traditional patterns of geopolitical and economic affinities. Co-publication links of Flanders have been considerably intensified. Flanders has traditionally strong links with the Netherlands, but has established strong links with other countries of the EU, above all with Germany, UK, France, Italy and Spain, with countries overseas, above all with USA, but also with EIT countries.
The bibliometric analysis has shown that both Belgium and Flanders are quite visible as contributors to this emerging field. Analyses of citation rates and relative citation performance have shown that, with a limited set of players, both Belgium and Flanders have been able to become visible players in the NST field. The Flemish and Belgian NST-communities are part of larger international scientific collaboration networks. Given the institutional structure of the Flemish science system, it is not astonishing that the Flemish universities have become the dominant institutions in this domain of scientific inquiry. The evolution of patterns in scientific output also demonstrates the recent and continuous growth in attention to the NST domain in Flanders.

The first chapter of the patent analysis is devoted to the study of general trends and the national representation in the two databases. While the shares of countries differ greatly between USPTO and EPO nanotechnology patents, due to "home biases", the rankings coincide at the top. Unlike in bibliometrics where international collaboration is expected to be reflected by international co-authorship, we have two approaches in patent literature, namely, co-inventions and co-assignation. With respect to US nano-patents USA, Germany, Japan, France and the UK are among the most collaborative countries. This is well in line with the observations made in the bibliometric part.
The patent databases allow a quite detailed analysis of the composition of nanotechnology at the level of technological domains, sub-domains and IPC classes. The overall composition proved to be relatively stable. However, significant developments have been found and discussed at the level of sub-domains and IPC classes.
The organisational analysis of nano-patents is based on the examinantion of organisational type (whether they are owned by a company or educational or governmental institution). In a second step, assignee rankings are introduced for both European nano-patent data and US nano-patent data. The data are put in both, an international and a Flemish and Belgian context.
The technological specialisation of countries is analysed with the help of the "Revealed Technological Advantage". The national indicator values calculated from the two databases show differences. Taking the small numbers of underlying patents and the resulting random errors into account, the comparison suggests that countries, however, neither considerably overspecialise nor underspecialise with respect to nanotechnology.
The last chapter is finally devoted to the analysis of quantitative aspects of the science-technology linkage in the NST discipline.
Also the data presented in the patent part of this report underlines that nanotechnology is still an emerging area of science and technology. However, there are also indications in a number of areas that the growth process is slowing down. The entire field seems to be in a phase of stabilisation and sedimentation. There are no drastic shifts anymore as far as the overall orientation of the NST area is concerned even though at the area of technological sub-domains there are still at times drastic developments.
NST seems to attract the attention of firms from a broad range of industries. Chemicals and pharmaceuticals as well as electronics firms are represented among the major patent holders. Large firms tend to dominate nano-patenting. Start-up enterprises appear to be rather the exception in prominent positions of patent rankings.
Belgium and Flanders take part in nano-patenting to an extent their size would suggest. However, patenting activity is low in absolute terms. One may ask to what extent the degree of activity nowadays could form the basis for developing a viable cluster of firms in this area. Currently, only one or two Belgian and Flemish firms seem to be more involved in this area as can be judged on the basis of patent data.

As NST is a young, emerging field, it is still unclear in which directions the field will develop over the coming years. However, as with all emerging fields, promises are high but usually take longer to materialise than is first anticipated.