Agricultural biotechnology worldwide patent analysis and mapping

Agricultural biotechnology (AgBio) and related areas have seen rapid growth in recent years. The speed and scope of development in the field have made it essential for researchers to be informed. The patent literature contains a wealth of detailed information about the existence for AgBio. While excellent searching tools have existed for many years for identifying patents relating to specific topics, it is only relatively recently that it has been feasible to map the complete archive of patent literature to identify important trends and competition pattern. In this work, several analysis and visualization techniques on AgBio-related patent documents between 1981 and 2009, including issued and application patent were experimented. The data sets are from the patent cooperation treaty (PCT) and the European patent offices, plus a range of national patent collections including those of the U.S.A., Japan, the U.K., France, Germany, Switzerland and Russia (SNTO). The results demonstrated the potential of information-based discovery and visualization technologies to capture knowledge regarding AgBio performance, trends of development and competition pattern through patent analysis and mapping.