Dynamic Patent Analysis of Wind Power Systems and Engineering Asset Development

Patent analysis of new technology development can be focused on various aspects, e.g., identifying the competitiveness of a specific country or the technical advances of a firm in the given domain. The offshore wind power (OWP) has been promoted and encouraged by many countries for their renewable energy development. This research focuses on systematically discover the profile of OWP technology innovation extracted, analysed and synthesized from world patent databases dynamically using text and data mining techniques. In real time, all related patents are searched and collected. Afterward, the research builds an OWP ontology schema by identifying the OWP technical domain structure, the core concepts, and the relationships between the concepts. The ontology schema is constructed and refined dynamically using key phrases automatically extracted from patents and verified by domain experts. The research also emphasizes on the control of risk and reliable factors when evaluating the offshore wind power development. Thus, the research applies patent indicators, i.e., the patent family, the growth rates of domain technologies, the reference and citation network, the technology and function matrix, and the patent litigation information, to derive the OWP R&D landscape and strategy. After building the OWP patent knowledge base (KB), the potentials of OWP development opportunities for a specific region can be clearly identified with reliable measures based on patent map informatics.