Patent data mining in fisheries sector: An analysis using Questel-Orbit and Espacenet

The advent of an enormous amount of patent data in various patent databases and patinformatics tools to analyze this data have led to an easy access to information for studying the technological trends and R&D activities in a sector. The fisheries sector is driven by the demand and profit generated and there are some unforeseen trends exhibited at different phases of development in specialized areas related to fisheries. In this study we have retrieved patent data of seven technology domains in fisheries, such as Fish, Fish Culture (FC), Fishing Technology (FT), Fish Processing and Products (FPP), Fish Health and Nutrition (FHN), Fish Genetics (FG) and Fish Rearing (FR) during 2000-2015. The legal status of patents, top priority countries and top assignees in different fields of the fisheries sector were analyzed. The results were compared with various developmental trends, indicating a clear relation to industrial ups and downs, the emergence of more patent portfolios in countries coping with latest technology trends and the improper litigation of legal status of the patents filed in the fisheries sector. Patent analysis in a specialized sector could be used as a potential tool in global policy debates, where fish as a natural resource is over-exploited without realizing its real potential.