Patent Technology Competitor Group Analysis Method Based on IPC

It is crucial to understand the technical groups of intra-industry and to master the competition in the field of technology. In order to provide valuable information for industry participants and policymakers, a process model for mining technical competitor groups based on IPC classification number is put forward. Firstly, the patent numbers under each IPC are counted for building feature vectors for competitors. Then, technical similarities between each pairs of competitors are computed. Finally, the LinLog graph clustering algorithm is carried out to discover three levels of groups, i.e. institution, province and country. To obtain patent data for this research, an acquisition system for Chinese patent data is developed. Experiments on the field of fuel cell is conducted and the results show the technique is helpful and effective.