Abstract
This paper analyzes the development of the German knowledge base measured by co-classifications of patents by German inventors and relate this technological development to changes in the structure of the underlying inventor networks. The central hypothesis states that technologies that become more central to the knowledge base are also characterized by a higher connectedness of the inventor network. The theoretical considerations are exemplified in a comparative study of two patenting fields—information technology and semiconductors. It turns out that information technology shows the highest increases in patents, but only a moderate move towards the center of the knowledge base. By contrast, semiconductors develops towards a key technology, despite a moderate increase in the number of patents. The dynamic analysis of inventor networks in both fields shows an increasing connectedness and the emergence of a large component in semiconductors, but not in information technology, which is in line with the expectations.
Reprinted from Journal of Evolutionary Economics 22(3), 459–480, Springer (2012).
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Notes
- 1.
The metaphor of a dwarf standing on the shoulder of a giant is actually attributed to Bernard of Chartres and dates back to the twelfth century. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants, October 4, 2011.
- 2.
Ejermo and Karlsson (2006) provide a very detailed account of the motives and benefits of forming such networks and discuss implications for their evolution.
- 3.
I acknowledge that a patent is a measure of invention rather than innovation, but since the argument is based on innovation as a search process, the implementation of an invention within an innovation is not necessary for a patent to serve as a proxy for new knowledge.
- 4.
The values in the co-occurrence matrix are interpreted as capacities of the linkages.
- 5.
Fleming et al. (2007) e.g. use a five-year moving window.
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Acknowledgements
During the process of conducting this research, I benefited from various discussions with Uwe Cantner. I would also like to thank Alexander Ebner, Michael Fritsch, Andreas Pyka for helpful comments on earlier drafts. Comments and suggestions by two anonymous referees are greatly acknowledged. This paper was presented at the Jahrestagung des evolutorischen Ausschusses des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2009 in Jena, at the EAEPE Conference 2009 in Amsterdam and at the Conference of the International Schumpeter Society 2010 in Aalborg. Of course, I am responsible for any remaining errors or shortcomings.
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Graf, H. (2013). Inventor Networks in Emerging Key Technologies: Information Technology vs. Semiconductors. In: Buenstorf, G., Cantner, U., Hanusch, H., Hutter, M., Lorenz, HW., Rahmeyer, F. (eds) The Two Sides of Innovation. Economic Complexity and Evolution. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01496-8_4
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