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Identifying the trends in wound-healing patents for successful investment strategies

BACKGROUND: Recently, the need for rapid wound-healing has significantly increased because of the increasing number of patients who are diagnosed with diabetes and obesity. These conditions have contributed to a surge in the number of patients with chronic wounds worldwide. Furthermore, many cost-ef...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Gwak, Jae Ha, Sohn, So Young
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5357059/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28306732
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174203
Descripción
Sumario:BACKGROUND: Recently, the need for rapid wound-healing has significantly increased because of the increasing number of patients who are diagnosed with diabetes and obesity. These conditions have contributed to a surge in the number of patients with chronic wounds worldwide. Furthermore, many cost-effective wound-healing technologies have been developed in order to keep up with the increased demand. In this paper, we performed a quantitative study of the trends associated with wound-healing technologies using patent data. METHODOLOGY: We analyzed the trends considering four different groups of patent applicants: firms, universities, research institutes, and individuals using a structural topic model. In addition, we analyzed the knowledge flow between patent applicants using citation analysis, and confirmed the role of applicants in the knowledge-flow network using k-means clustering. As a result, the primary wound-healing technology patents applied for by the four groups varied considerably, and we classified the roles of patent applicants were found in the knowledge-flow network. CONCLUSIONS: Our results showed the organizations that are leading each area of wound-healing technology. Furthermore, from the results, we identified specific institutions that are efficient for spreading knowledge related to wound-healing technology based on the patents. This information can contribute to the planning of investment strategies and technology policies related to wound-healing.