Technology Network Construction and Analysis Method for Technology Trends Discovery

Patents and technologies are important references in the product design process, it is important to know the future trend of developing technology for the improving of product innovation design ability. Therefore, to analyze the law of the technology development and provide a reliable patent analysis process for new product development, a technology network model based on complete graphs is constructed to describe the future trend of technologies. Based on the technology network model, a patent analysis process that analyzes the trends of technology is provided. To illustrate the feasibility and validity of the proposed methodology, a case study with 9489 patents on electric vehicles between June 2011 and June 2016 from USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) is performed.