Identifying the Technology Position on Patent Acquisition of Cardiovascular Stent by Complementarity and Supplementary Knowledge

The most common way for an organization to expand its innovation capability is to acquire technological patent. Consequently, it is an important issue for firms to identify and estimate the target patent. Before acquiring, firms also have to make sure whether the target patents is matching the strategic purpose, and whether the target patent is suitable for the adopting after acquiring. And the result of patent citation analysis can be referred for estimating target patent as the result reveals the technology relationship between firms, the market value of technologies and the technology development strategy. Moreover, technology network analysis can visualize the overall social structure of actors in the technology network and illuminate their relationships and roles. However, few scholars have examined the relative positions of firms in technology networks from the viewpoint of individual social networks. This research uses the idea of the "ego-network", defining the firm's core technology patent portfolio as "ego" while patents which directly cite core patents are defined as the "neighborhood. The purpose of this research is to understand how the firm, through patent transfers, alters its technology position and performs inductive analysis as a reference for future changes in its patent portfolio strategies. The results of this research demonstrate that irrespective of patent transfer strategy, the relative position of firms in the technology network is displaced by patent transfers. By dividing the trajectory of displacement into quadrants the data set may be named as pioneers, leaders, followers, and laggards. And the result shows firms may exit markets, reduce internal subdivisions, carry out cost control, or sell off patents, moving their position to the left or downward and making them followers or laggards. By the same token, when firms enter a new technology area or market, increase their technological capabilities, or acquire technology patents, their position shits to the right or downward, and they become leaders or pioneers.補正完