Identifying Emerging Technologies with Smart Patent Indicators: The Example of Smart Houses

Patent information plays a key role in technology intelligence. As granted patent rights provide temporary exclusivity to commercialize inventions, emerging technologies are marked by brisk increases in patenting, revealing patent-based information as sources for corporate technology intelligence. In this paper, I analyze one such emerging technology, smart houses, which refers to connected and centrally controlled everyday household solutions. I provide a detailed technology landscape study that tracks longitudinal patenting changes in the technology during the 18-year period from 2000 to 2017. Central to the analyses is the use of smart indicators and longitudinal annual data, allowing tracking changes over time. The analyses encompass general patenting trends in the technology of smart houses, including the detection of key players, pertinent technology class developments, and most relevant countries for the technology of smart houses. The case study results indicate that the use of smart indicators and longitudinal data supplements established patent indicators in technology intelligence by providing additional insights to the emergence of new technologies that cannot be detected by conventional measures.