Evaluating the patenting activities of pharmaceutical research organizations based on new technology indices

• Published in: Journal of informetrics 2016-02, Vol.10 (1), p.74-81
• Main Authors: Kang, Kiyeon, Sohn, So Young
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Patent h-index; Patent h-type variants; Patenting activities; Patentometrics; Pharmacy
• ISSN: 1751-1577; 1875-5879
• DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2015.10.006

•We apply patent h-index and its variants to transgenic animal patents.•Factor analysis identified three indices for evaluating R&D organization.•The new indices are forward citation, impact per year, and patent family dimension.•They represent productive capacity, patent commercialization speed, and effort. Several citation-based indicators, including patent h-index, have been introduced to evaluate the patenting activities of research organizations. However, variants developed to complement h-index have not been utilized yet in the domain of intellectual property management. The main purpose of this study is to propose new indices that can be used to evaluate the patenting activities of research and development (R&D) organizations, based on h-type complementary variants along with traditional indicators. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is used to identify those indices. By applying the proposed framework to pharmaceutical R&D organizations, which have their patents registered in the United States Patent Trademark Office (USPTO), the following three indices are obtained: the forward citation, impact per unit time, and patent family factors. The ranking obtained from the new indices can represent the productive capacity of the qualified patent, patent commercialization speed, and patent commercialization effort of research organizations. The new proposed indices in this study are expected to contribute to the evaluation of the patenting activities of R&D organizations from various perspectives.