The Study of Academic Research Trends in the Patent Related Fields in
Taiwan
Rong-Jer Lai 1, Chih-Yung Chen 2
1 National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences, Taiwan
2 Kaohsiung Motor Vehicles Office, Directorate General of Highways, Taiwan Correspondence author email： E-mail : rjlai@cc.kuas.edu.tw
Abstract
This study investigates the patent related theses and dissertations from the universities in Taiwan until the academic year 2007. First, the research trends are analyzed by the life cycle model of the annual published works, and then the cluster analysis is carried out based on the similarities among the keywords set for each thesis or dissertation. Finally, the evolution of research trends is explored from the social, economic and industrial development perspectives.
The result shows that the development of Taiwan’s patent related researches can be divided into three stages: (1) beginning stage before 1994: The majority of subjects are on the aspect of law, such as modification of patent system, infringement and licensing. (2) introduction stage from 1995 to 1999: Besides legal issues, the subjects include management of intellectual property and application of patent analysis. (3) growth stage since 2000: The patent related researches have been intensified in a remarkable manner, and the topics cover the legal, management, commercial, financial, and engineering aspects.
On the whole, the patent related researches from the universities in Taiwan deal with the management and legal issues more than others. The continuous patent related studies in the engineering field just appear at the growth stage, and still remain in a small scale, which indicates the academics requires more efforts on the upstream of patent process.
Key words：Intellectual Property; Patent-related Issues; Trend Study; Life Cycle Model; Cluster Analysis
1. Introduction
From the historical viewpoint, the patent system in Taiwan began in 1899. Taiwan was annexed to Japan in 1895 according to the Treaty of Shimonoseki, and when Japan became the 18th member of Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property in 1899, the laws regarding patent, trademark and copyrights were promulgated and enforced in Taiwan at the same time. In August 1945 Japan lost the war, and her military in Taiwan must surrender to Generalissimo Chang Kai-shek (1887~1975) by the General Order No. 1 issued by General Douglas MacArthu (1880~1964), Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. In October 1945 China ruled over Taiwan, and whatever legislation of China was applied on the island. The era of Temporary Ordinance for Rewarding Industrial Technologies, the patent law of China at that time, began until the end of 1948. On January first, 1949 the new Patent Law was put in force in Taiwan, not long before the Nationalist government lost the civil war in China and fled to Taiwan in September 1949. The Patent Law, which specifies three kinds of patent, i.e. invention, new utility model and new design, has been modified many times since then, and influenced to a certain degree by the systems of Japan and USA.
From the beginning of 1970s, the industrial structure of Taiwan has changed gradually from labor-intensive to technology-intensive. In accordance with the statistics from Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO), the cumulative patent applications amount to 1.26 millions during the period between 1984 and 2008 [1]. In spite of the global financial crisis there were still 78,425 applications filed in 2009, compared with 83,613 applications in 2008 [2]. On the other hand, the patent statistics report from USPTO in 2009 [3] shows that Taiwan ranks as No. 6 by geographic origin with respect to the utility patents granted, and about 40 % of them, i.e. 30,588 patents are granted between the years 2005 and 2009. When taking patent as a measure, it could be said that Taiwan is a land of innovation.
In 1999 the Fundamental Science and Technology Act was promulgated in Taiwan, by which the intellectual property rights and results derived from the projects subsidized, commissioned, or funded by the government may be conferred, in whole or in part, to the executing research and development units for ownership or licensing for use [4]. Since then the technology innovations from the universities, research institutes or organizations may be offered for the industry in the way of industry-academy collaboration, licensing and technology transfer, or strategic alliance. The universities in Taiwan, no matter they are public or private, make every effort to prosecute patents, so that 23 universities are recorded on the list of Top 100 domestic non-personal applicants in 2009 [5], which reveals the significance of intellectual property rights has dramatically changed for the academics of Taiwan. Similar development of the relationship between universities and industry also happened in the USA after the Bayh-Dole Act was enacted in 1980 [6].
The university always plays a key role in the aspects of knowledge creation and technology innovation due to her functions as education, research and service suppliers. What the patent related researches from the universities in Taiwan look like in the past decades, and how about their interrelation with the social, economic and industrial development are worthy to study with respect to the vigorous activities of technology innovation in Taiwan. Hence, in this study the patent related theses and dissertations from the universities in Taiwan until the academic year 2007 will be investigated. First of all, the research trends are analyzed by the life cycle model of the annual published works, the distinct stages of which are introduction, growth, maturity, and decline [7], and then the cluster analysis is carried out based on the similarities among the keywords set for each thesis or dissertation. Finally, the evolution of research trends is explored from the social, economic and industrial development perspectives.
2. Material and method
The theses and dissertations that contain the term “patent” within either the title or the keywords are searched out through the Electronic Theses and Dissertations System from National Central Library in Taipei [8]. 923 pieces of published works are found until the academic year 2007, but only 909 of them are counted after pruning away the repeat and the content irrelevant ones. Then, based on the number of annual publications the development of patent related researches is studied and divided into different stages following the life cycle model. Further, the similarity among the theses and dissertations is measured by the keywords reset for each publication (as stated below), and the cluster analysis is carried out with the aid of the software SPSS [9]. For this study it is the average linkage method of hierarchical clustering to be applied [10, 11].
Usually, the keywords in a scientific publication are proposed by the author(s) to denote the issues and connection she/he/they deal(s) with. Within the scope of this study the keywords put forward by the original
authors sum up to 2411 terms. Because many of them are synonyms on the one side, and a similarity matrix of large dimensions is adverse for the cluster analysis on the other side, the original keywords are merged into 148 terms in advance. In other words, for the measurement of similarity not the original keywords are used directly, but the 148 ones, of which 1 to 6 terms would be taken as attributes for each publication.
To measure the likeness of published works, Jaccard similarity coefficient is used [12]. Suppose any two works called Ti and Tj with corresponding keyword sets, say X and Y, then the degree of similarity between Ti and
Tj will be taken as the value of the number of the same terms (i. e. size of intersection) divided by the number of
the total terms (i.e. size of union) that appear in both keyword sets in the following form:
Sim(Ti, Tj)=
X
∩
Y
/X
∪
Y
(1)The value of Jaccard similarity coefficient lies between 0 (completely different) and 1 (entirely the same). For example, if T1:(A1,A2,A3), T2:(A1,A3,A5,A10), T3:(A1,A4,A5,A7,A8) and T4:(A5,A6,A9) denote four different publications T1~T4 with their corresponding keywords in terms of A1~A10, then, the degrees of similarity between T1 and the others read like:
Sim(T1, T2)=
X
∩
Y
/X
∪
Y
=A
1 A
,
3
/A
1
,
A
2
,
A
3
,
A
5
,
A
10
=2/5=0.4,Sim(T1, T3)=
X
∩
Y
/X
∪
Y
=A
1
/
A
1
,
A
2
,
A
3
,
A
4
,
A
5
,
A
7
,
A
8
=1/7=0.14, andSim(T1, T4)=
X
∩
Y
/X
∪
Y
=φ
/A
1
,
A
2
,
A
3
,
A
5
,
A
6
,
A
9
=0/6=0, respectively.That is to say, T1 and T2 are more similar than T1 and T3, and between T1 and T4 it is completely different.
3. Results
Figure 1 shows the statistics of the patent related theses and dissertations published until the academic year 2007. The earliest one dated in 1975. The peak with 164 publications appears in 2006, next to it is the year 2005 with 152 publications, and at the third place is the year 2007. The publications during these three years sum to around half of the total records. Since the academic year begins in September and ends in the next August, almost all the works are published during the period between June and August, but several publications are somehow delayed, like those shifted into the year 2008 as shown in Figure 1.
1 2 4 3 1 4 2 7 2 3 3 4 12 8 13 12 17 24 45 83 95 120 152 164 121 7 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 1975 1982 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
year
N
o.
of
publ
ic
at
ions
Figure 1: Statistics of the patent related theses and dissertations published in Taiwan
The development of the patent related researches is divided into three stages as follows: the beginning stage before 1994, during this period there are less than 10 publications annually; the introduction stage between 1995 and 1999, for this duration the yearly publications are below 20; and the growth stage since 2000, when the universities in Taiwan intensify the researches in the patent related fields, so that the annual publications increase rapidly and reach the peak in 2006. It is noted that the published works reduced remarkably in 2007 compared with those in 2006. Whether it means the recession of research activity begins is still indefinite to answer, as far as the statistics is concerned.
Besides, after classification of the published works by category of the source, it is found that 469 publications, i.e. 52% of total records, belong to college of management, 269 (about 30% of the whole) to college of law, and 122 to college of engineering. Additional analysis based on the annual distribution in Figure 2 shows that the patent related researches in Taiwan start from college of law during the beginning stage, and main participators joining during the introduction stage come from college of management. From the growth stage on the participators are diversified, including the involvement of the colleges of liberal arts, bio and social sciences, particularly those from college of engineering. Although the researches are not limited to the legal, management and engineering aspects, the issues of management play a dominant role with respect to the quantity of publications.
College Engineering Liberal Arts Bio Law Social Sci. Management year 75 82 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 Note: The shade indicates the number of publications. The darker shade means the more publications.
Figure 2: Distribution of the publications by category of the source
The result of cluster analysis based on the above mentioned Jaccard similarity coefficient indicates that the publications could form itself into 6 groups. The distribution of the publications by source and the topics concerned within each group are shown in Table 1 briefly. Further description of each group will be stated as follows.
Group I is composed of 116 publications, and main participants come from colleges of management and law. The topics concerned are:
(1) intellectual property management system for business, organization and university, including the establishment of management system, strategy of marketing, planning of R & D, patent strategy, patent around, defense tactics to patent troll, human resource management, laboratory management, review and reward system for the patent proposal etc., and their effects on the intellectual property management system. At the university level, the issues further include the effect of technology transfer on the application of R & D, the relationship between the academic research and technology development, and the interaction between the high-tech industries and the university etc.,
(2) patent abuse and compulsory licensing of the patents that are taken as industrial standards, including the case study of patent infringement between Philips Electronics and CD-R/CD-RW manufacturers, and (3) patent licensing, including drafting of licensing contract, licensing strategy, patent pool, royalty,
technology transfer, and legal issues resulted from the restricted competition, such as violation against the fair trade law or antitrust law.
Group II contains 409 publications, mainly from colleges of management and engineering. The related topics are:
(1) patent analysis, through which the patents about specific technology or product such as lithium battery, TFT-LCD and so on are searched out and analyzed to demonstrate the technology status and the development trends. The theories involved are text mining, social network analysis, co-citation approach based on bibliometrics, logistic and Gompertz models, and rough set theory,
(2) R & D of specific technology or product, e.g. heat sink, backlight module, and disc brake for bicycle with the aid of patent information before the initiation of work,
(3) development of automatic retrieval and classification system of patent documents in order to grasp the patents effectively and quickly,
are QFD (Quality Function Deployment), AHP ( Analytic Hierarchy Process) and TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving),
(5) modification of patent system, for example, the issues about the ownership of benefits resulted from patent, amendment of patent specification, translation of foreign applications, as well as the protection of business methods and software,
(6) measurement and influential factors of innovation performance, such as payment, bonus and stock share system at the corporation level, and the education expenditure as well as the degree of open trade etc. at the nation level.
Group III represents 83 publications, chiefly from college of law. The topics concerned are the litigation of patent infringement, including determination of the scope of patent claims, expert witness, damage compensation, remedy for the patent infringement, and defense of the accused infringer.
Group IV consists of 90 publications, mainly from college of law. The topics concerned include: (1) patentable subject matter, the focus of which is the biotechnology and gene related products,
(2) patentability, or the requirements of industrial utility, novelty and inventiveness (or non-obviousness), especially the inventiveness,
(3) legal protection for the plant and seed, and the appearance design of commodities.
Group V is composed of 157 publications, mainly from college of management. The topics include: (1) assessment of intangible assets, e.g. the patent value, and the influence of patent on the stock price,
income and performance of corporation,
(2) management strategy of intellectual property for specific industry, e.g. the different protection systems as well as the licensing strategy, litigation strategy and the risk management.
Group VI contains 54 publications, chiefly from college of law. The topics concerned are:
(1) patent abuse and compulsory licensing of pharmaceutical patent , including the Doha declaration on the public health needs, generic drugs, the relief of responsibility due to experimentation, and the case study of dispute of compulsory licensing of Tamiflu in 2005,
(2) modification of patent system, including patent examination, revocation of patent right, administrative remedy, patent term, and comparative study of patent systems among countries and so on.
To sum up, the topics discussed are combined into the following headings: (A)Systematic methods of technology innovation (Group II, topic 4),
(B)automatic retrieval and classification system of patent documents (Group II, topic 3), (C)R & D of specific technology or product (Group II, topic 2),
(D)Modification of patent system (Group II, topic 5; Group IV, topic 2; Group IV, topic 3; Group VI, topic 2), (E)Patentable subject matter (Group IV, topic 1),
(F)Patent analysis (Group II, topic 1),
(G)Intellectual property management (Group I, topic 1; Group V, topic 2), (H)Assessment of intangible assets (Group II, topic 6; Group V, topic 1); (I)Patent licensing (Group I, topic 3),
(J)Litigation of patent infringement (Group III),
Table 1: Distribution of publications by source and the topics concerned within each group Group Source No. Topics concerned
I (116) Management 57 Law 49 Engineering 5 Social Sciences 2 Bio 2 Liberal Arts 1
1. Intellectual property management system 2. Patent abuse and compulsory licensing 3. Patent licensing II (409) Management 237 Engineering 109 Law 35 Bio 13 Liberal Arts 9 Social Sciences 6 1. Patent analysis 2. R & D of technology or product 3. Development of automatic retrieval and classification system of patent documents 4. Systematic methods of technology innovation 5. Modification of patent system 6. Measurement and influential factors of innovation performance III (83) Law 72 Management 8 Social Sciences 2 Engineering 1
1. Litigation of patent infringement IV (90) Law 76 Management 8 Social Sciences 5 Bio 1
1.
Patentable subject matter2.
Patentability3.
Legal protection for the plant and seed, and appearance design of commodities V (157) Management 139 Law 9 Engineering 7 Social Sciences 1 Bio 11.
assessment of intangible assets2.
management strategy of intellectual property VI (54) Law 44 Social Sciences 6 Management 41.
Patent abuse and compulsory licensing2.
Modification of patent systemThe above mentioned topics could be related with the different stages of the patent process from innovation through application and management to utilization, as shown in Figure 3. The topics A, B and C are about the
relationship between technology innovation, R & D and patent information. The topics D and E handle the legal issues of patent system and go with the patent application. The topics F, G and H discuss the patent management, and the topics I, J and K are concerned during the utilization of patent. It can be found that the efforts of Group I are focused on the issues of intellectual property management (topic G) and patent licensing (topic I). The interests of Group II lie in the R&D, innovation as well as the patent management, particularly the patent analysis (topic F) together with the aids of patent documents (topic B and topic C). For Group III the only subject is the litigation of patent infringement (topic J). The concerns of Group IV are modification of patent system (topic D) and patentable subject matter (topic E), both go with the patent application, and the efforts of Group V are concentrated at the intellectual property management (topic G) as well as assessment of intangible assets (topic H). Finally, for Group VI it is concerned with the modification of patent system (topic D).
Patent process R&D, Innovation stage patent application stage patent management stage patent utilization stage Topics A B C D E F G H I J K Group I ★ ■ ▲ II ▲ ■ ■ ▲ ★ ● ▲ ● III ★ IV ■ ■ V ★ ★ VI ■ ▲
Note: The symbols used indicate the number of publications as follows: ●: below 10; ▲: 11~30; ■: 31~70; ★: more than 71
Figure 3: Distribution of publications by topics and group at different stages of patent process
Further analysis of annual publications by group is shown in Figure 4. It is noted that the research power from Group II begins to increase in 1998 and remains the dominant intensity during the period between 2003 and 2007 when compared with other groups. On the other hand, the distribution of annual publications by topics in Figure 5 shows that the researches on the patent analysis (topic F) begin to increase in 2001 and are intensive during the period between 2004 and 2007, particularly in 2006. On the whole, besides the patent analysis (topic F) the researches on the modification of patent system (topic D), intellectual property management (topic G), assessment of intangible assets (topic H), litigation of patent infringement (topic J) and patent abuse and compulsory licensing (topic K) have been intensified since 2002. The issue about automatic retrieval and classification of patent documents (topic B) seems to be noticed just recently. Similarly, the systematic methods of technology innovation (topic A) that should deserve to be emphasized due to their determinant role for claiming a patent are lack of exploration until 2002.
Group I II III IV V VI year 75 82 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 Note: The shade indicates the number of publications. The darker shade means the more publications.
Figure 4: Distribution of annual publications by group
Topics A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. J. K. year 75 82 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 Note: The shade indicates the number of publications. The darker shade means the more publications.
Figure 5: Distribution of annual publications by topics
4. Evolution of research trends
4.1 Industrial, economic and social perspectives
As far as the industrial development of Taiwan is concerned, the policy of import substitution is put into practice for the first time to develop the labor intensive light industries during the 1950s. The foreign market shares of Taiwan products rapidly grow under the policy of export expansion during the 1960s. But, the increasing labor cost, oil crisis and protectionism cause the policy of import substitution and export expansion to be carried out again during the 1970s to develop heavy industries as well as information technology and electronics industries, so that the industrial structure changes gradually from labor intensive to technology intensive. According to the so called “2 larges, 2 highs and 2 lows” principle under the policy of strategic industries during the 1980s, the industries to be developed are oriented in the directions of large market share and large industrial
connection, high technology level and high added value, low energy consumption and low contamination, not only new industries are planed, but also technologies for the key components are pinpointed. At the same time, traditional industries are upgraded and restructured by means of financial support, technology, management and marketing aids. Beyond the 1990s, the focus of industrial development are the industries of communication, information technology, consumption electronics, semiconductors, precision machinery and automation, aerospace, high end materials, specific chemicals and pharmaceuticals, health care and contamination prevention. To respond to the challenge of globalization in the 21st century, the goals of industrial development currently aim at knowledge intensive service, biotechnology, IT technology, micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) and nanotechnology.
On the other side, the issue of intellectual property rights entered into the negotiation agenda of Uruguay Round for the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) in 1986. At the end of 1991, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) was drafted, and in effect in 1994. World Trade Organization (WTO) was founded in 1995 to replace the role of GATT. Following the development trend of international trade, Taiwan applied to GATT for the membership in 1990, and was qualified as observer in 1992. Parallel to the international organization, Taiwan began her negotiations with USA in the aspect of intellectual property. The result is that Taiwan’s Patent Law was modified to a large extent in 1994. Taiwan applied herself to enter into WTO in December 1995 for trying to keep the mutual benefits and equal positions with the trade partners within the multilateral trade framework, so that the Patent Law was modified again in 1996 to be in compliance with the international agreement. Later on, the authority of intellectual property affairs was reorganized, and TIPO took charge of the mission in 1999.
Taiwan’s Patent Law has evolved quickly since 2000. At first, the penal provisions for the infringement of invention patent were abolished in 2001, and those for the new utility model and the new design patents finally terminated in 2003. On January first, 2002, Taiwan became the member of WTO, and the requirements of TRIPS are fulfilled more solidly and soundly than ever. The industries realize the importance and necessity of intellectual property rights to improve the competition capability, and more and more resources are invested in the R&D. The result shows itself in the rapid increase of patent applications annually since 2000 (as stated below). The current Patent Law was enforced on July first, 2004, and one of the main modifications is that for speeding up the examination process with regards to the new utility model patent only formality examination is carried out instead of the substantive examination of patentability up to that time, and accompanied with the patent term being shortened from 12 to 10 years. In August 2008 the Intellectual Property Court was erected to govern matters in relation to civil, criminal and administrative actions over intellectual property [13], a milestone for the bifurcated judicial system of Taiwan.
Since the Fundamental Science and Technology Act was promulgated in 1999, the research institutes, corporate bodies and universities have made every effort to apply and hold patents. The tendency can be found from the lists of Top 100 domestic patent applicants in terms of corporate bodies, which are published by TIPO annually. The number of universities listed on the Top 100 domestic applicants grew from 2 in 2001, through 8 in 2004, to 19 in 2007, and even up to 23 in 2009 (Table 2). Not only the number increases with the time, but also the rank moves upward. It could be said that the meaning of the intellectual property has changed radically for the universities of Taiwan.
Table 2: The number of universities listed on the annual Top 100 domestic patent applicants in terms of corporate bodies
Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
No. 2 2 3 8 10 13 19 19 23
Source: TIPO
From the viewpoint of patent activity, the number of annual patent applications in Taiwan was below 43,000 before 1994. But, the development entered into another stage during the period between 1995 and 1999. Patent applications increased every year, 52,000 pieces were filed in 1999, and there were 83,613 applications in 2008. On the other hand, although there were still 173,668 invention patents and 32,058 new utility model patents valid at the end of 2008, the cases of patent licensing always remained less than 1% of the issued annually. This fact points out that for most corporations in Taiwan the goal of intellectual property management is more conservative than active, that is, more for the defense of infringement accusation than for the profits from licensing. According to the balance of payments on the royalties and license fees from the statistics of the Central Bank of Taiwan (Table 3) [14], every year more than 1,100 millions US Dollars must be paid for the foreign companies since 1996, and the debit even rapidly grew from 2,321 millions US Dollars in 2006 to 3,424 millions US Dollars in 2009. On the contrary, yearly credit of the royalties and license fees remains less than 300 millions US Dollars for most years, except in 1998, 2000 and 2001. Therefore, how to manage the intellectual property rights effectively to create the maximal value becomes the issue concerned by every side.
Table 3: Balance of payments on the royalties and license fees
Year ‘96 ‘97 ‘98 ‘99 ‘00 ‘01 ‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 ‘09
credit 256 237 317 245 371 339 255 215 290 234 244 220 191 242
debit 1234 1148 1419 1637 1834 1499 1720 1689 1677 1796 2321 2575 3015 3424 In millions US Dollars Source: Central Bank of Taiwan
Under the auspices of TIPO, a draft for establishing IP management system of industries together with the corresponding accreditation procedure was proposed in 2003. As planed initially, it was to be taken as a national standard in that respect, but in December 2004 it was decided to be followed as an industrial guideline, and the further promotion works were transferred to Industrial Development Bureau (IDB), Ministry of Economics Affairs (MOEA) [15]. The final version, called Taiwan Intellectual Property Management System (TIPS) was adopted in April 2007. TIPS is based on the operating principle of PDCA cycle after the ISO 9001:2000 quality management system, and includes the general requirements of IP management system (section 4), management responsibility (section 5), resource management (section 6), realization of IP rights (section 7), and measurement, analysis and improvement (section 8). The initial target of TIPS was the 3C, biotech, food and vehicle industries. The companies and organizations that introduced TIPS and met the requirements through an impartial third party assessment so that a certificate could be issued to them counted from 8 in 2005, to 28 in 2009 [16], among which National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences (KUAS) as the first certificated the university in Taiwan introduced TIPS in 2008.
As mentioned above, the promulgation of the Fundamental Science and Technology Act in 1999 has influenced the research and development, also the policy of intellectual property of universities to a great extent. On the other hand, because the open policy of high education in Taiwan began in 1988, about 29,000 graduate students of master degree enrolled in 1993, that were double of those in 1988. In 2006 the number exceeded 160,000, and those of doctor degree amount to round 30,000 [17]. Many new graduate schools are installed in the fields of technology management, technology laws, and intellectual property management, so that there are totally134 publications within this study from such fields just after the year 2000. According to the statistics of Ministry of Education, there are cumulatively around 400,000 graduate students in the engineering field during the period between 1998 and 2007, but in this study totally only 122 patent related publications from college of engineering are found. In comparison with the 269 publications for 27,000 graduate students in the filed of law and 469 publications for 180,000 graduate students in the management field, the number of the patent related researches in the engineering field are out of proportion to their graduate students.
Last but not least, due to the progress of information technology the available tools for patent searching and patent analysis such as Patent Guider [18] and Patent Pilot [19], make it possible understanding the patent documents quickly, easily and with limited cost, which is a significant factor for the related researches.
4.2 Issues concerned at different periods 4.2.1. Beginning stage before 1994
The issues concerned during this period are focused on the legal aspect, such as modification of the patent system, licensing and infringement of patent. At that time, the development of economics of Taiwan stood at the turning point, and it was the key policy of government that industrial technologies should be upgraded and further developed. It was recognized that the out-of-date regulations of Patent Law should be modified to be in compliance with the international trends, if the goals to allure the foreign investment and to encourage the R&D of industries on the one hand, and to help Taiwan to enter into the international organization on the other hand would be achieved. But, the intellectual property was not treated seriously enough by the industries of Taiwan at that time, nor was the patent system sound enough, so that the government usually faced the pressure from outside as well as the resistance from inside, when she negotiated with the foreign countries. Therefore, how to conform to the worldwide requirements is the driving force behind during this period and the researches reflect the related proposals on the modification of patent system.
4.2.2 Introduction stage between 1995 and 1999
The management and application of intellectual property rights, grasp of technology status and development trends based on the patent analysis are the issues concerned during this period. The patent related researches extend from colleges of law and management to engineering and social sciences, among which the publications from college of management increase fast, and even overtake those from college of law, which can be explained by the many new graduate schools installed in the field of technology management. The annually increasing patent applications at the same time reflect the fact that the industries have realized the importance of intellectual property gradually, and strived for innovation through R&D and new business model. The issues concerned during this period represent the transformation of industrial structure and upgrading of industrial technologies.
4.2.3 Growth stage since 2000
During this period not only the quantity of patent related researches increases rapidly, but also the scope extends widely. The key points are the patent analysis, management of intellectual property, and assessment of intangible assets. The new issues include the systematic methods of technology innovation, automatic retrieval and classification system of patent documents, R & D of specific technology or product, patent abuse and compulsory licensing and so on. Most works about systematic methods of technology innovation, automatic retrieval and classification system of patent documents, and R & D of specific technology or product come from college of engineering, and could be ascribed to the stage of innovation and R&D along the patent process.
5. Conclusions
The development of the patent related researches in Taiwan can be divided into the stages of beginning, introduction and growth after the life cycle model. During the beginning stage before 1994, the major research subject is on the legal aspect, such as modification of patent system, infringement and licensing. For the introduction stage from 1995 to 1999, besides legal issues the research subjects include management of intellectual property and application of patent analysis. In 2000 the growth stage began, and the researches on the patent related issues have been intensified in a remarkable manner, the topics cover the legal, management, commercial, financial, and engineering aspects. The publications in the academic year 2007 reduce significantly, but it is still indefinite to say this means the recession of research activity in this respect.
On the whole, the patent related researches from the universities in Taiwan deal with the management and legal issues more than others. The continuous patent related studies from the engineering field just appear at the growth stage, and still remains in a small scale, which indicates the academics requires more efforts on the upstream of patent process.
Reference
[1] TIPO, Annual statistics report 2008, published on June 12th, 2009.[2] TIPO, Annual statistics report 2009, published on May 5th, 2010.
[3] USPTO, Patents By Country, State, and Year - Utility Patents (December), online available: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/cst_utl.htm, 2009.
[4] Fundamental Science and Technology Act, Article 6, Paragraph 1, Laws & Regulations Database, Taiwan, online available: http://law.moj.gov.tw/Eng/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?PCode=H0160028, 2005.
[5] TIPO, Top 100 domestic applicants in terms of corporate bodies, published on March 31st, 2010.
[6] Demain A.L., The Relationship between Universities and Industry: The American University Perspective, Food technol. biotechnol. 39 (3) 157–160, 2001.
[7] Industry Life Cycle, in: K. Hillstrom, L.C. Hillstrom (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Small Business, Gale Cengage, eNotes.com, online available: http://www.enotes.com/small-business-encyclopedia/industry-life-cycle, 2002.
[8] Electronic Theses and Dissertations System, National Central Library, Taipei. [9] SPSS Taiwan Co..
[10] Kantardzic M., Data Mining, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey, 2003.
[11] Chow W.S., Multivariate Statistical Analysis: with Application of SAS/STAT, BestWise Co., Taipei, 2002. [12] Jain A.K., Dubes R.C., Algorithms for Clustering Data, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1988.
[13] Intellectual Property Court Organization Act Article 2, online available: http://jirs.judicial.gov.tw/eng/FLAW/FLAWDAT0201.asp?lsid=FL042719
[14] Central Bank of Taiwan, Balance of payments on the royalties and license fees, 2009.
[15] TIPS, Background of Project, online available: http://www.tips.org.tw/body.asp?Sno=BCCB, 2010.
[16] TIPS, List of certificated corporations, online available: http://www.tips.org.tw/body.asp?Sno=BGCD, 2010. [17] Department of Statistics, Ministry of Education, Taiwan, online available:
http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/B0013/overview05.xls
[18] Patent Guider, Learning Tech Co., http://www.learningtech.com.tw/en/html/analysis.htm. [19] Patent Pilot, Apex Information Co., http://www.apexi.com.tw/product/patent_pilot.html.
