NanoMapper: A Knowledge Mapping System for Nanotechnology Funding and Developments

Daning HuXin LiYan DangJoyce ChanDr. Hsinchun Chen

Dec 2006

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OutlineOutline

• Introduction• Background and Research Objectives• Research Design• System Design• Data Set• System Demo

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IntroductionIntroduction• Nanotechnology

– Is an applied science/ technology field that is multi-disciplinary and encompasses engineering and other work taking place at the nanoscale.

– Critical for a nation’s technological competence. – Revolutionizes a wide range of application domains.– R&D status attracts various communities’ interest.

• Nanotechnology has experienced rapid growth in recent years.

• Previous studies assessed the research status of nanotechnology domain using different open sources. – Patents (Meyer 2001; Huang et al., 2003, 2004)– Public funding (Huang et al., 2005)

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IntroductionIntroduction• There are few systems open to the public that consolidate the

various resources and provide a overall assessment of nanotechnology research status. – Nanotechnology-related research documents are usually

distributed in different repositories. – Such information is usually not well structured and is in different

formats.– Previous research usually focused on a single data source instead

of multiple data sources.

• To address these problems, we developed a knowledge mapping system aiming to:– Provide a one-stop online service for the retrieval of

nanotechnology research documents.– Provide knowledge mapping tools to analyze nanotechnology

research status.

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Background: Patent AnalysisBackground: Patent Analysis• Patent analysis for nanotechnology

– A patent is a special type of technology document which documents the innovations and technology advances.

– Patent publication status has been used in evaluating technology development (Karki, 1997; Oppenheim, 2000; Narin, 1994) in different domains.

– Meyer (2001) assessed the interrelationships between science and technology in the nanotechnology field using USPTO patents.

– In our previous (AI Lab) research, a framework was proposed to assess nanotechnology research and development using bibliographic analysis, content map analysis, and citation network analysis (Huang et al., 2003a, 2004, 2005; Li et al., 2006).

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Resources for Patent AnalysisResources for Patent Analysis

• There are several governmental or intergovernmental patent offices which control the granting of patents in the world.– Each patent office has different procedures and policies which

affect the patent publication process.– The “home advantage” effect can be another factor that affects the

composition of the patents in each patent office’s repository. • Domestic applicants, proportionate to their innovative activities, tend to

file more patents with their home country patent office than foreign applicants do (European Commission, 1997).

• To obtain a comprehensive understanding of nanotechnology development, the information in different patent offices’ repositories is needed.– USPTO, EPO and JPO issue nearly 90 percent of the world’s

patents (Kowalski et al., 2003).

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Background: Public Funding AnalysisBackground: Public Funding Analysis• Because of nanotechnology’s fundamental impact to a wide range of application

domains, nanotechnology has been recognized as a critical research field by several countries.

– In 2000, the United States announced the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI, www.nano.gov) (Roco, 2000).

– More than 60 countries have adopted national projects or programs for nanotechnology research (Roco, 2005).

– Significant public funding has been invested on nanotechnology research. • Previous research analyzed the relationship between public funding and a

domain’s development.– The funding documents can be used to reveal the research topics in the domain

(Huang et al., 2005, 2006).– The impact of public funding on research output is dependent on the particular

technology field (Narin, 1998).

• In nanotechnology research:– NSF is a major public funding source of nanotechnology research in the United States.– NSF supported inventors to publish patents with higher average number of cites

(Huang et al., 2005).

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Background: Nanotechnology Knowledge PortalsBackground: Nanotechnology Knowledge Portals• The high volume and various types of nanotechnology-related

information dispersed in different data sources make it difficult for researchers in the domain to access and evaluate development. – Web portals have been built to partially address this problem.

Web Portals Focuses

Nanotechnology Nowhttp://www.nanotech-now.com/

News, interviews, reports.

NanoScouthttp://www.nanoscout.de/

Linkages to the nanotechnology -related websites.

Wikipeida Nanotechnology Portalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Nanotechnology

Historical events, introductions.

ENS Nanotechnology Portalhttp://www.ensbio.com/NanotechnologyPortal.html

Linkages to the nanotechnology-related websites.

Nano Tsunami http://www.nano-tsunami.com/

News

Nano Science & Technology Institute http://www.nsti.org/

News, academic conference information.

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Research GapsResearch Gaps

• The previous nanotechnology portals collected nano-related news and nano-related websites only.

• Although there were several studies on assessing nanotechnology research status using technology documents, few of the portals provide a one-stop access to these documents or provide in-depth analysis of them.– Collecting the documents from multiple repositories; and

– Providing search and analytical tools to access and elevate this information.

– Patents and funding documents are two of the major technology documents open to the public.

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Research ObjectivesResearch Objectives

• The NanoMapper knowledge mapping system aims to provide:

– Access to the nanotechnology patents published in USPTO, EPO, and JPO.

– Access to the nanotechnology grants issued by NSF.

– Assess the nanotechnology development status represented by the USPTO, EPO, JPO patents and the NSF grants.

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Research DesignResearch Design• A framework for building a domain-specific knowledge mapping

system

Parsing

Data acquisition Search and Analytic Tools

Research Topic CoverageResearch Topic Coverage

Collected bykeywords

Patent and Grant SearchPatent and Grant Search

Patent/Grant Publication TrendPatent/Grant Publication TrendEPOdatabase

EPOdatabase

NSFdatabase

NSFdatabase

Knowledge diffusion PatternsKnowledge diffusion Patterns

Collected bykeywords

EPO patents

USPTO patents

EPO+JPO patent

Collected bykeywords

NSF grants

JPOdatabase

JPOdatabase

RepositoryRepositoryJPO patentsJPO patent status

JPO patents

USPTOdatabase

USPTOdatabase

Other databases

Other databases Collected by

keywords

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Data AcquisitionData Acquisition• Keyword list

– A nanotechnology-related keyword list provided by domain experts (Huang et al., 2003; 2004).

• Patent search/retrieval– We use USPTO, EPO, and JPO as patent data sources.– For USPTO, we retrieved nanotechnology patents by searching the

nanotechnology-related keyword list in patent title, and abstract, (“title-abstract” search), in patent title, abstract, and claims (“title-claims” search) and in all patent data fields (“full-text” search) (Huang et al., 2003; 2004).

– For EPO, we collected the nanotechnology patents using only “title-abstract” search, because of the limitation of the search function of esp@cenet.

– For JPO, we collected the nanotechnology patents/applications using “title-abstract” search in esp@cenet. The patent status information was retrieved from JPO to filter the application out of the dataset.

• Grant search/retrieval– We use NSF as a grant data source.– We retrieved nanotechnology grants by searching the nanotechnology-

related keyword list in grant title, program, and abstract in NSF.

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Data Acquisition: KeywordsData Acquisition: KeywordsFull-text search Title-claims search Title-abstract search

selfassembl* 23 4 2 0 0 4self assembly 1,802 192 121 33 0 68self assembled 1,682 297 170 31 1 66self assembling 877 158 111 48 5 12self-assembly 1,625 173 108 0 5 555self-assembled 1,587 277 158 0 0 419self-assembling 807 147 102 0 0 135atomic force microscope 2,309 375 241 69 62 192atomic force microscopic 53 2 2 2 1 7atomic force microscopy 1,679 103 68 21 0 352atomic-force-microscope 6 0 0 0 0 3atomic-force-microscopy 3 0 0 0 0 0scanning tunneling microscope 1,097 205 145 47 79 174scanning tunneling microscopic 21 1 0 0 1 4scanning tunneling microscopy 809 50 28 8 0 296scanning-tunneling-microscope 24 0 0 0 0 1scanning-tunneling-microscopy 1 1 0 0 0 0atomistic simulation 5 0 0 0 0 55biomotor 6 1 0 0 0 0molecular device 164 13 6 4 3 73molecular electronics 284 3 3 3 3 111molecular modeling 1,787 37 26 2 1 394molecular motor 88 3 0 3 0 92molecular sensor 31 7 0 2 1 27molecular simulation 43 2 2 1 1 164quantum computing 66 25 19 4 1 161quantum dot* 609 185 117 49 81 393quantum effect* 563 58 36 16 65 166nano* 72,762 12,220 4,497 2,024 635 5,993Total 90,813 14,539 5,962 2,367 945 9,917Unique Total 78,609 13,463 5,363 2,328 923 7,774

NSF(1991-2004)USPTO(1976-2004)

EPO(1978-2004) JPO(1976-2004)

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ParsingParsing

• Most of the open source data are in free-text, which must be parsed into structured data and stored in a database.

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DatasetDataset• Nanotechnology related patents

– USPTO• Full-text search: 78,609 patents, 18,665 institutions, 91,855 inventors,

and 151 countries.• Title-claims search: 13,469 patents, 4,807 institutions, 19,716 inventors,

and 57 countries.• Title-abstract search: 5,363 patents, 2,196 institutions, 8,405 inventors,

and 46 countries.

– EPO• 2,328 patents, 1,168 institutions, 5,400 inventors, and 43 countries.

– JPO• 923 JPO patents, 348 institutions, and 1,729 inventors.

• Nanotechnology related grants– NSF

• 7,774 grants, 9 directorates, 46 NSF organizations, and 332 programs.

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Search and Analytic ToolsSearch and Analytic Tools

• Patent/grant search– Enables users to access the details of patents and grants.

• Patent/Grant publication trends– Allows users to conduct bibliographic analysis to assess the

patent/grant publication status of different countries/ institutions/etc.

• Research topic coverage– Provides content maps for analyzing the topics covered by the

patents/grants across different time periods.

• Knowledge diffusion patterns– Allows users to visualize and analyze the citation networks at

different analytical unit levels using an open source graph drawing software, Graphviz, provided by AT&T Labs (Gansner and North, 2000).

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System DesignSystem Design

Search Interfaces(HTML, JSP)

PresentationLayer

Content Maps(Applet)

Citation Networks(Applet)

Dynamic Graphs(Applet)

LogicControlLayer EPO

searchmodule

NSF grantsearchmodule

DatabaseLayer NSF Grant

Combined search module

USPTOpatents

JPOpatents

USPTOsearchmodule

JPOsearchmodule

Patent and granttopic mapsgeneration

Patent trendgraphs

generation

EPOpatents

Patent citationnetworks

generation

Statisticsgeneration

module

Dynamic tables(JSP)

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System FunctionalitiesSystem Functionalities• The NanoMapper system provides search tools:

– Patent information search functions:• Search by patent number• Search by patent title, abstract and claim• Search by patent issue date, inventor and assignee information, etc.

– NSF grant information search functions:• Search by grant number, program information and applicant information, etc.

– Combined search function:• Search across the four database (USPTO, EPO and JPO) by title, abstract and claim.

• The NanoMapper system also provides analytical tools and information:– Patent/grant statistics

• Number of patents/grant by countries/institutions/technology fields• Average number of cites by countries/institutions/technology fields

– Topic coverage• Content map analysis

– Knowledge diffusion in patent citation networks• Country citation network analysis• Institution citation network analysis• Technology field network analysis

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System Functionalities (cont.)System Functionalities (cont.)

Search Statistics Citation network

Content mapOverall Trend

USPTO Country,

institution,

technology field, inventor

Country,

institution,

technology field

Country,

institution,

technology field

EPO Country,

institution,

technology field,

Inventor

Country,

institution,

technology field

Country,

institution,

technology field

JPO Institution,

technology field,

Inventor

Institution,

technology fieldN/A

NSF Organization,

directorate,

program,

principal investigator

Organization,

directorate,

program

N/A

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System DeploymentSystem Deployment

SOM SeverAi 20

Dreamweaver2004 +JSP

DeploymentDesign

Application Server

Apache Tomcat5.0

Database ServerAi-Bigdog

SQL Sever 2000

Development Server128.196.253.64

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System Demo: Patent Number SearchSystem Demo: Patent Number Search

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Search Results: Patent DetailSearch Results: Patent Detail

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System Demo: Patent Quick SearchSystem Demo: Patent Quick Search

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Search Results: Patent ListSearch Results: Patent List

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System Demo: Patent Advanced SearchSystem Demo: Patent Advanced Search

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System Demo: Patent Overall StatisticsSystem Demo: Patent Overall Statistics

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System Demo: Patent Trend AnalysisSystem Demo: Patent Trend Analysis

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System Demo: Patent Trend Analysis (cont.)System Demo: Patent Trend Analysis (cont.)

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System Demo: Citation Network AnalysisSystem Demo: Citation Network Analysis

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System Demo: Content Map AnalysisSystem Demo: Content Map Analysis

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System Demo: Combined SearchSystem Demo: Combined Search

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System Demo: Combined Search ResultsSystem Demo: Combined Search Results

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ReferencesReferences• Bacchiocchi, E. and F. Montobbio (2004). "EPO vs. USPTO citation lags." Working

Paper CESPRI 161.• European Commission (1997). Second European Report on S&T Indicators.

Bruxelles, European Commission.• Gansner E., North S. An open graph visualization system and its applications to

software engineering. Software: Practice and Experience, 30(11): 1203 - 1233• Huang, Z., et al. (2003a). "Longitudinal patent analysis for Nanoscale Science and

Engineering: Country, institution and technology field." Journal of Nanoparticale Research 5: 333-363.

• Huang, M. H., et al. (2003b). "Constructing a patent citation map using bibliographic coupling: A study of Taiwan's high-tech companies." Scientometrics 58(3): 489-506.

• Huang, Z., et al. (2004). "International Nanotechnology Development in 2003: Country, Institution, and Technology Field Analysis Based on USPTO Patent Database." Journal of Nanoparticale Research 6(4): 325-354.

• Huang, Z., et al. (2005). "Longitudinal nanotechnology development (1991-2002): National Science Foundation funding and its impact on patents." Journal of Nanoparticle Research 7: 343-376.

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ReferencesReferences• Karki, M. M. (1997). "Patent citation analysis: a policy analysis tool." World Patent

Information 19: 269-272.• Kowalski, T. J., et al. (2003). "Dominating global intellectual property: Overview of

patentability in the USA, Europe and Japan." Journal of Commercial Biotechnology 9(4): 305-331.

• Lewison, G. (1998). "Gastroenterology research in the United Kingdom: funding sources and impact." Gut 43(2): 288-293.

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• Narin, F. (1994). "Patent Bibliometrics." Scientometrics 30(1): 147-155.• Oppenheim, C. (2000). Do Patent Citations Count? The Web of knowledge. B.

Cromin and H. B. Atkins. Medford, Information Today, Inc.: 405-432.• Roco M.C., R.S. Williams & P. Alivisatos, (2000). Nanotechnology Research

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