Journal of Intellectual Property (J Intellect Property; JIP)

KCI Indexed
OPEN ACCESS, PEER REVIEWED

pISSN 1975-5945
eISSN 2733-8487
Research Article

Quantitative identification and characterization of technological trends in the electric vehicle industry

1Undergraduate Student, Department of Information System, Hanyang University, Republic of Korea
2Associate Professor, Department of Information System, Hanyang University, Republic of Korea

Correspondence to Hyunseok Park, E-mail: ficwj22@gmail.com

Volume 19, Number 1, Pages 131-157, March 2024.
Journal of Intellectual Property 2024;19(1):131-157. https://doi.org/10.34122/jip.2024.19.1.6
Received on December 07, 2023, Revised on January 22, 2024, Accepted on February 29, 2024, Published on March 30, 2024.
Copyright © 2024 Korea Institute of Intellectual Property.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the article is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Abstract

With growing attention being paid to electric vehicle (EV) technology as a response to climate change, researchers have been actively investigating the classification and trajectory trends of EV technology. This study aims to understand and characterize EV technological trends by combining EV patent citation and text data. The analysis of EV patent data was conducted using knowledge-persistence-based main path analysis and the latest topic modeling methodology, BERTopic, yielding a detailed showcase of technological trajectories according to a classification considering specific technologies. The analysis identified a core technological trajectory comprising 200 patents, which falls into three topics: “Propulsion & Control,” “Charging & Battery,” and “Circuit Thermal Management & Autonomous Driving.” The study reveals interactions and concerted developments between “Propulsion & Control” and “Charging & Battery” technologies; the importance of hybrid vehicles and wireless charging technologies; advancements in circuit thermal management technologies; the emergence of autonomous driving technologies. Using quantitative patent data, this study delivers technological insights for stakeholders in the EV industry, contributing to the identification and classification of EV technological trajectory trends.

Keywords

electric vehicle, patent data analysis, main path analysis, BERTopic, technological trajectory

Notes

Conflicts of Interest

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

Funding

The author received manuscript fees for this article from Korea Institute of Intellectual Property.

Section