Analysis on determinants of knowledge diffusion based on patent citations

Knowledge diffusion process is influenced by many factors, such as distance, technology proximity, time and language and so on. In our research, we choose the IPC “B82B” as the target subject to learn how these factors work using patent citations as the substitute of know flows. The data used in this paper comes from Derwent Innovation Index (DII). We find that knowledge diffusion present a trend of localization due to these factors such as distance, language and technology proximity. And what's more, patent family plays a very important role in the diffusion process.