Scientometric and patentometric analyses to determine the knowledge landscape in innovative technologies: The case of 3D bioprinting

Abstract

This research proposes an innovative data model to determine the landscape of emerging technologies. It is based on a competitive technology intelligence methodology that incorporates the assessment of scientific publications and patent analysis production, and is further supported by experts’ feedback. It enables the definition of the growth rate of scientific and technological output in terms of the top countries, institutions and journals producing knowledge within the field as well as the identification of main areas of research and development by analyzing the International Patent Classification codes including keyword clusterization and co-occurrence of patent assignees and patent codes. This model was applied to the evolving domain of 3D bioprinting. Scientific documents from the Scopus and Web of Science databases, along with patents from 27 authorities and 140 countries, were retrieved. In total, 4782 scientific publications and 706 patents were identified from 2000 to mid-2016. The number of scientific documents published and patents in the last five years showed an annual average growth of 20% and 40%, respectively. Results indicate that the most prolific nations and institutions publishing on 3D bioprinting are the USA and China, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and Tsinghua University (China), respectively. Biomaterials and Biofabrication are the predominant journals. The most prolific patenting countries are China and the USA; while Organovo Holdings Inc. (USA) and Tsinghua University (China) are the institutions leading. International Patent Classification codes reveal that most 3D bioprinting inventions intended for medical purposes apply porous or cellular materials or biologically active materials. Knowledge clusters and expert drivers indicate that there is a research focus on tissue engineering including the fabrication of organs, bioinks and new 3D bioprinting systems. Our model offers a guide to researchers to understand the knowledge production of pioneering technologies, in this case 3D bioprinting.

Systematic reviews and tech mining: A methodological comparison with case study

“…The audiences for tech mining follow a structure similar to that of corporate R&D, but with a stronger focus on funding and strategy. Data sources are selected, and the inclusion criteria used reflect those audiences and purposes, with tech mining pulling data largely from the patent and engineering and technical databases, while systematic reviews extract data from a variety of health, life science, and social science databases, depending on the specific topic . Both of these bibliometric methods appropriately focus on data sources that match the domain of the question and target audience.…”

The development trends of antineoplastics targeting PD-1/PD-L1 based on scientometrics and patentometrics

“…VOSviewer, a freely available computer program, is developed for constructing and viewing bibliometric maps [21] , has been widely used in many fields, such as computer and information ethics [22] , physiology [23] , 3D bioprinting [24] , etc. In our research, the VOSviewer software constructed maps of scientific research focus and technological development focus, on account of the cooccurrence frequencies of the words from the title and abstract of the publications (2015-2019) and patents, respectively.…”

Trends in Decellularized Extracellular Matrix Bioinks for 3D Printing: Inspiring a new Kind of Medicine

“…Several companies are currently involved in producing 3D bioprinters and commercializing the printing of large tissues. These include CellInk and Organovo [184][185][186][187][188][189][190]. Though faced with many challenges including scaling up of the processes, regenerative medicine technologies are expanding and are likely to impact on patients' treatment in future.…”