Brantle, TF; Fallah, MH Complex innovation networks, patent citations and power laws PICMET '07: PORTLAND INTL CENT FOR MANAGE. OF ENGINEERING AND TECHN, VOLS 1-6, PROC. - MANAGE. OF CONVERGING TECH. 540-549, 2007

[Eugene Garfield]

Email Address: tbrantle at stevens.edu

Author(s): Brantle, TF (Brantle, Thomas F.); Fallah, MH (Fallah, M. 
Hosein) 

Title: Complex innovation networks, patent citations and power laws 

Editor(s): Kocaoglu, DF; Anderson, TR; Daim, TU 

Source: PICMET '07: PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR MANAGEMENT OF 
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, VOLS 1-6, PROCEEDINGS - MANAGEMENT OF 
CONVERGING TECHNOLOGIES 540-549, 2007 

Language: English 

Document Type: Article 

Conference Title: Conference of the 
Portland-International-Center-for-Management-of-Engineering-and-Technology 
(PICMET 2007) 

Conference Date: AUG 05-09, 2007 

Conference Location: Portland, OR 

Conference Sponsors: Portland State Univ, Dept Engn & Technol Management, 
Natl Sci Fdn, Ikon Off Syst, Portland Int Ctr Management Engn & Technol 

KeyWords Plus: SMALL-WORLD NETWORKS; WEB; EVOLUTION; INTERNET; PAPER 

Abstract: We study knowledge and innovation flows as characterized by the 
network of patent citations and investigate its scale free power law 
properties. We discuss the importance of the application of complex 
networks to the understanding of the underlying processes of knowledge 
exchange and technological innovation. We suggest that this area of 
research while traditionally investigated via econometric modeling and 
statistical data analysis may be further examined and explained via a 
complex network analysis approach using the tools and techniques of 
statistical mechanics and advanced network analysis. We demonstrate that 
the citation network is a scale free network. In particular, the network 
node degree probability distribution follows a power law. In other words, 
the probability that a patent is highly connected to other patents is 
statistically more likely than would be expected via random connections 
and associations. Hence, the network's properties are determined by a 
relatively small number of highly connected nodes or patents referred to 
as hubs. We also highlight several potential application areas for further 
investigation via a complex network analysis approach. 

Addresses: Stevens Inst Technol, Wesley J Howe Sch Technol Management, 
Hoboken, NJ 07030 USA. 

Cited Reference Count: 40 

Publisher Name: PICMET 

Publisher Address: PORTLAND STATE UNIV, DEPT ENGNG & TECH MGMT, PO BOX 
751, PORTLAND, OREGON 97207-0751 USA 

ISBN: 978-1-890843-16-8 

Source Item Page Count: 10 

ISI Document Delivery No.: BHZ38 

AIELLO W
HDB MASSIVE DATA SET : 97 2002 

ALBERT R
Internet - Diameter of the World-Wide Web
NATURE 401 : 130 1999 

ALBERT R
Statistical mechanics of complex networks 
REV MOD PHYS 74 : 47 2002 

AMARAL LAN
Classes of small-world networks
P NATL ACAD SCI USA 97 : 11149 2000 

AMIDON DM
INNOVATION STRATEGY : 1997 

AMIDON DM
INNOVATION SUPERHIGH : 2002 

ARUNDEL A
BELEIDSTUDIES TECHNO 37 : 67 2001 

BARABASI AL
Evolution of the social network of scientific collaborations
PHYSICA A 311 : 590 2002 

BARABASI AL
Mean-field theory for scale-free random networks
PHYSICA A 272 : 173 1999 

BARABASI AL
Scale-free networks
SCI AM 288 : 60 2003 

BARABASI AL
Emergence of scaling in random networks
SCIENCE 286 : 509 1999 

BOLLOBAS B
RANDOM GRAPHS : 2001 

BORNER K
The simultaneous evolution of author and paper networks 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF 
AMERICA 101 : 5266 2004 

CHRISTENSEN CM
INNOVATORS DILEMMA : 2000 

COHEN WM
PATENTS KNOWLEDGE BA : 2003 

DOROGOVTSEV SN
EVOLUTION NETWORKS B : 2003 

DOROGOVTSEV SN
Language as an evolving word web
P ROY SOC LOND B BIO 268 : 2603 2001 

EBEL H
Scale-free topology of e-mail networks
PHYS REV E 2A 66 : 5103 2002 

FALOUTSOS M
On power-law relationships of the Internet topology 
ACM SIGCOMM'99 CONFERENCE: APPLICATIONS, TECHNOLOGIES, ARCHITECTURES, AND 
PROTOCOLS FOR COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS 29 : 251 1999 

GOLDSTEIN ML
Problems with fitting to the power-law distribution
EUR PHYS J B 41 : 255 2004 

GRILICHES Z
PATENT STATISTICS AS ECONOMIC INDICATORS - A SURVEY
J ECON LIT 28 : 1661 1990 

HALL B
E01304 U CAL DEP EC : 2001 

HENDERSON R
Universities as a source of commercial technology: A detailed analysis of 
university patenting, 1965-1988
REV ECON STAT 80 : 119 1998 

JAFFE A
PATENTS CITATIONS IN : 2002 

JAFFE AB
GEOGRAPHIC LOCALIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE SPILLOVERS AS EVIDENCED BY PATENT 
CITATIONS 
Q J ECON 108 : 577 1993 

JEONG H
The large-scale organization of metabolic networks
NATURE 407 : 651 2000 

DEV GEOGRAPHY EC THE : 1995 

LILJEROS F
The web of human sexual contacts
NATURE 411 : 907 2001 

NEWMAN MEJ
COMPLEX NETWORKS : 337 2004 

NEWMAN MEJ
Power laws, Pareto distributions and Zipf's law
CONTEMP PHYS 46 : 323 2005 

NEWMAN MEJ
The structure of scientific collaboration networks
P NATL ACAD SCI USA 98 : 404 2001 

NEWMAN MEJ
The structure and function of complex networks
SIAM REV 45 : 167 2003 

PORTER ME
Clusters and the new economics of competition
HARVARD BUS REV 76 : 77 1998 

REDNER S
How popular is your paper? An empirical study of the citation distribution 
EUR PHYS J B 4 : 131 1998 

REDNER S
PHYS REV : 2004 

SAXENIAN A
REGIONAL ADVANTAGE C 128 : 1994 

SOLE RV
Complexity and fragility in ecological networks
P ROY SOC LOND B BIO 268 : 2039 2001 

VAZQUEZ A
STAT CITATION NETWOR : 2001 

WANG XF
IEEE CIRCUITS SYSTEM : 6 2003 

WATTS DJ
Collective dynamics of 'small-world' networks
NATURE 393 : 440 1998