This paper presents a new global patent map that represents all technological categories and a method to locate patent data of individual organizations and technological fields on the global map. This overlay map technique may support competitive intelligence and policy decision making. The global patent map is based on similarities in citing‐to‐cited relationships between categories of the International Patent Classification (IPC) of European Patent Office (EPO) patents from 2000 to 2006. This patent data set, extracted from the PATSTAT database, includes 760,000 patent records in 466 IPC‐based categories. We compare the global patent maps derived from this categorization to related efforts of other global patent maps. The paper overlays the nanotechnology‐related patenting activities of two companies and two different nanotechnology subfields on the global patent map. The exercise shows the potential of patent overlay maps to visualize technological areas and potentially support decision making. Furthermore, this study shows that IPC categories that are similar to one another based on citing‐to‐cited patterns (and thus close in the global patent map) are not necessarily in the same hierarchical IPC branch, thereby revealing new relationships between technologies that are classified as pertaining to different (and sometimes distant) subject areas in the IPC scheme.

Inducement prizes are increasingly popular because of their potential to induce technological innovations and attain related goals. Academic research, however, has barely investigated these prizes. This paper investigates the motivation of prize entrants, the characteristics of their research and development (R&D) activities, and the overall effect of prizes on innovation using case study research and documentary data sources. The Ansari X Prize and the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, both considered successful technology competitions in the aerospace sector, are investigated. The findings show that, first, incentives created by competitions, particularly those that are nonmonetary, attract unconventional entrants. The market value of the prize technologies motivate entrants as well but do not attract traditional industry players. Second, limited technology development lead times and no up-front funding characterize prize R&D activities, yet their differences with traditional industry practices are caused by participant-level factors. Most importantly, the introduction of novel R&D approaches is associated with the participation of unconventional entrants. Third, these prizes induced innovations over and above what would have occurred anyway, with the caveat that they were linked to significant technology incentives and fundamentally, ongoing R&D processes. These findings put forward lessons that inform the design of more effective prize competitions._3 60..377 R&D Management 41, 4, 2011.

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This article investigates the development of nanotechnology in Latin America with a particular focus on Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. Based on data for nanotechnology research publications and patents and suggesting a framework for analyzing the development of R&D networks, we identify three potential strategies of nanotechnology research collaboration. Then, we seek to identify the balance of emphasis upon each of the three strategies by mapping the current research profile of those four countries. In general, we find that they are implementing policies and programs to develop nanotechnologies but differ in their collaboration strategies, institutional involvement, and level of development. On the other hand, we find that they coincide in having a modest industry participation in research and a low level of commercialization of nanotechnologies.

His research interests include science, innovation and technology management and policy, economic development, and policy evaluation.