Identifying emerging core technologies for the future: Case study of patents published by leading telecommunication organizations

In recent years, the volume of mobile traffic has increased at an unprecedented rate and the mobile paradigm has changed. These dynamics have driven the next-generation telecommunications technologies, and the existing fourth-generation technology is reaching maturity. The pre-acquisition of promising future technologies enables firms to achieve and sustain their business growth; thus, numerous organizations in the telecommunications sector have made a huge amount of effort to develop fifth-generation (5G) technologies. Although understanding these emerging and promising 5G technologies is essential, they still remain poorly investigated. To fill this research gap, we first define the characteristics of promising technologies in the telecommunications sector, then develop a framework for identifying them based on patents. Specifically, we design three patent indices for deriving the core patents published by leading organizations in the sector. We then apply bibliographic coupling and text mining to the patents and identify their major innovation trends. We identify 21 technology fields as promising areas emphasized by the leading organizations. Theoretically, this study is one of the few attempts to examine various approaches to identify promising technologies and to suggest the most appropriate one considering the research purpose as well as the characteristics of telecommunications sector. In practice, this study can provide information about patent activities of key incumbent actors and thus offer some insights into recent technological developments towards 5G.