A literature review on the state-of-the-art in patent analysis

The rapid growth of patent documents has called for the development of sophisticated patent analysis tools. Currently, there are various tools that are being utilized by organizations for analyzing patents. These tools are capable of performing wide range of tasks, such as analyzing and forecasting future technological trends, conducting strategic technology planning, detecting patent infringement, determining patents quality and the most promising patents, and identifying technological hotspots and patent vacuums. This literature review presents the state-of-the-art in patent analysis and also presents taxonomy of patent analysis techniques. Moreover, the key features and weaknesses of the discussed tools and techniques are presented and several directions for future research are highlighted. The literature review will be helpful for the researchers in finding the latest research efforts pertaining to the patent analysis in a unified form. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.