Title: Identifying technological competition situations for artificial intelligence technology - a patent landscape analysis

Authors: Xin Li; Mingjie Fan; Zheng Liang

Addresses: College of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124, China ' College of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124, China ' School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is a new focus for international competition, with countries around the world accelerating major outlay to enhance their innovation competitiveness. Identifying the global situation of AI technology is a strategic issue for enterprises and countries. Considering current deficiencies in research directed towards this, the content for analysing technological competition situations should be determined from the two most relevant levels of: 1) technology's dimension; 2) research and development (R&D) actors' dimension, with time (T), market (M), technology (T) and subject (S) as its four elements. This paper, therefore, proposes an analytical framework of technological competition situation, based on the four dimensions of TMTS. AI technology is taken as an example to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the analytical framework. This paper will contribute to our understanding of the global competitive situation of AI technology, and will be of interest to AI technology's R&D experts.

Keywords: artificial intelligence; patent analysis; four-dimensional analysis; competitive situation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2020.108987

International Journal of Technology Management, 2020 Vol.82 No.3/4, pp.322 - 348

Received: 14 Feb 2019
Accepted: 20 Apr 2020
Published online: 13 Aug 2020 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article