Temporal motifs in patent opposition and collaboration networks
Abstract Patents are intellectual properties that reflect innovative activities of companies and organizations. The literature is rich with the studies that analyze the citations among the patents and the collaboration relations among companies that own the patents. However, the adversarial relation...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Nature Portfolio
2022-02-01
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| Series: | Scientific Reports |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-05217-8 |
| _version_ | 1818085226705846272 |
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| author | Penghang Liu Naoki Masuda Tomomi Kito Ahmet Erdem Sarıyüce |
| author_facet | Penghang Liu Naoki Masuda Tomomi Kito Ahmet Erdem Sarıyüce |
| author_sort | Penghang Liu |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Patents are intellectual properties that reflect innovative activities of companies and organizations. The literature is rich with the studies that analyze the citations among the patents and the collaboration relations among companies that own the patents. However, the adversarial relations between the patent owners are not as well investigated. One proxy to model such relations is the patent opposition, which is a legal activity in which a company challenges the validity of a patent. Characterizing the patent oppositions, collaborations, and the interplay between them can help better understand the companies’ business strategies. Temporality matters in this context as the order and frequency of oppositions and collaborations characterize their interplay. In this study, we construct a two-layer temporal network to model the patent oppositions and collaborations among the companies. We utilize temporal motifs to analyze the oppositions and collaborations from structural and temporal perspectives. We first characterize the frequent motifs in patent oppositions and investigate how often the companies of different sizes attack other companies. We show that large companies tend to engage in opposition with multiple companies. Then we analyze the temporal interplay between collaborations and oppositions. We find that two adversarial companies are more likely to collaborate in the future than two collaborating companies oppose each other in the future. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-10T20:06:25Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-9eb8b40767f94eb58c68b550a021d8e0 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2045-2322 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-10T20:06:25Z |
| publishDate | 2022-02-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Scientific Reports |
| spelling | doaj.art-9eb8b40767f94eb58c68b550a021d8e02022-12-22T01:35:23ZengNature PortfolioScientific Reports2045-23222022-02-0112111110.1038/s41598-022-05217-8Temporal motifs in patent opposition and collaboration networksPenghang Liu0Naoki Masuda1Tomomi Kito2Ahmet Erdem Sarıyüce3Department of Computer Science and Engineering, State University of New York at BuffaloDepartment of Mathematics, State University of New York at BuffaloFaculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda UniversityDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, State University of New York at BuffaloAbstract Patents are intellectual properties that reflect innovative activities of companies and organizations. The literature is rich with the studies that analyze the citations among the patents and the collaboration relations among companies that own the patents. However, the adversarial relations between the patent owners are not as well investigated. One proxy to model such relations is the patent opposition, which is a legal activity in which a company challenges the validity of a patent. Characterizing the patent oppositions, collaborations, and the interplay between them can help better understand the companies’ business strategies. Temporality matters in this context as the order and frequency of oppositions and collaborations characterize their interplay. In this study, we construct a two-layer temporal network to model the patent oppositions and collaborations among the companies. We utilize temporal motifs to analyze the oppositions and collaborations from structural and temporal perspectives. We first characterize the frequent motifs in patent oppositions and investigate how often the companies of different sizes attack other companies. We show that large companies tend to engage in opposition with multiple companies. Then we analyze the temporal interplay between collaborations and oppositions. We find that two adversarial companies are more likely to collaborate in the future than two collaborating companies oppose each other in the future.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-05217-8 |
| spellingShingle | Penghang Liu Naoki Masuda Tomomi Kito Ahmet Erdem Sarıyüce Temporal motifs in patent opposition and collaboration networks Scientific Reports |
| title | Temporal motifs in patent opposition and collaboration networks |
| title_full | Temporal motifs in patent opposition and collaboration networks |
| title_fullStr | Temporal motifs in patent opposition and collaboration networks |
| title_full_unstemmed | Temporal motifs in patent opposition and collaboration networks |
| title_short | Temporal motifs in patent opposition and collaboration networks |
| title_sort | temporal motifs in patent opposition and collaboration networks |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-05217-8 |
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