Analysing Patent Influence and Patent Importance Across the Industrial Boundary of 3D Printing

Patent ciitations received by a patent are directly correlated to the technological and commercial importance of that patent. Dominant theory suggests that highly cited patents contain an important technological advance. Additionally, there is a substantial body of literature on citation analysis tools and citation<based measures. This study contributes to the discussion that forward citation are an indicator of technological impact in the 3D Printing cluster of technologies. We focus on the analysis of the six most highly cited patents in the 3D Printing field, by using qualitative means of inquiry (expert interviews) to carry an in<depth investigation into the citation motives that helped the evolution of the technology. Results show that the number of forward citations is an indicator of technological impact in the 3D Printing cluster of technologies. Based on the above results, this study also seeks to understand to what extent are citation tools, identified by the literature, suitable in measuring technological impact and to what extent they reveal a comprehensive picture of citation patterns, in the 3D Printing field. We compute a number of citation<based measures for six most highly cited patents in the 3D Printing field and evaluate their suitability in measuring technological impact. Results suggest that there are several citation