Research and application of patent map analysis

Patent documents embed many important research results. But they often appear as legal documents covering the technology and business information wherein. Effective intelligence tools are necessary for patent information extraction. Patent Map (PM) provides visualized expression of total patent analysis results, describing the signification of all the charts, figs, graphs and so on, helping the non-specialists understand the patent analytical results easily and effectively. It is used as the starting point to investigate technology trend, and find out new emerging technology, valuable to both technologists and organizational managers or industry watchers. This paper discussed the typical representations of PM results about their functions, usual formats. A case study, patents activity analysis of the Vehicle Navigation either global or within China, was conducted by PM analyzing. Analysis results, including the development trends, technology mature degrees, technology structural distributions, major competitors, core patents, citation relationships, R&D hotspots, co-operations between major players, attributes in Chinese domestic market, etc., were presented in suitable visual maps.