Innovation Trends and Development Strategies in the Significant Scientific Instrument—A Case of Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Understanding innovation trends and strategies of significant scientific instrument is an important issue not only for researchers in technology development, but also for company directors for their successful management of product competitiveness. Therefore, we took mass spectrometry as case study. Multiple patent quantitative indexes and several quality indicators were introduced. The methods of patent bibliometrics, technology field analysis, technology decomposition, scenarios of growth were chose to investigate the trends for this technology. Patent layout was expressed from micro (inventors), meso (organizations), macro (countries)-three levels. The results show that key points for the research of mass spectrometry are focused on ionization and separation of mass analyzer. The application of mass spectrometry was the major area. US owned the most patents in raising the efficiency and expanding application for mass spectrometry, while Japan owned the most patents in improving reliability and convenient usage. The forecasting showed that this technology has entered fast growth stage, a lot of accumulating for mass spectrometry has been achieved, it would be another 20 years before the limit could be reached for mass spectrometry technology. Total patent collaborative ratio was 74.84%: inventors kept a close cooperation in the field of mass spectrometry and inventor’s cooperation is a common form for the research and development of mass spectrometry worldwide. All the organizations from US had higher external collaborative ratios, but Japan pay less attention on the external cooperation. US, Japan, and developed European countries were the focused technological market.