philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Data Mining 200 Years of Patent Office Records To Reveal The Nature of Invention

That opens up the possibility of an interesting study, they say. Since the US Patent Office records go back to 1790, it ought to be possible to see how the combination of codes has changed over time. In particular, these records should reveal to what extent invention is the refinement of existing combinations of technologies and to what extent it is the result of new combinations of technologies.

The results give an interesting insight into this question. They suggest that some 40 per cent of new inventions rely on previously existing combinations of technologies while about 60 per cent introduce entirely new combinations of technologies.

“Studying patent, comparative and systemic records of inventions, will open a way to make quantitative assessments for a counterpart of these features of biological evolution in technological evolution,” they say.

See the full story here: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/528436/data-mining-200-years-of-patent-office-records-to-reveal-the-nature-of-invention/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140617