Exploring potential R&D collaboration partners through patent analysis based on bibliographic coupling and latent semantic analysis

The aim of the present research is to provide a new systematic methodology to explore potential Research and Development (R&D) collaboration partners using patent information. The potential R&D collaboration partners are visualised as a patent assignee level map based on technological similarity between patents by using the network analysis. The proposed framework utilises two analytic methods to measure technological similarity. The first method, bibliographic coupling analysis, measures technological similarity based on the citation relationship using patent bibliographic information. Second, latent semantic analysis is utilised based on semantic similarity using patent textual information. The fuel cell membrane electrode assembly technology field is selected and applied to illustrate the proposed methodology. The proposed approach allows firms, universities, research institutes and governments to identify potential R&D collaborators as a systematic decision-making support tool.