Unveiling the core technology structure for companies through patent information

Patent information provides an objective and public source to understand core technologies of companies. In this paper, a method is proposed for identifying core technology capabilities for a company in the semiconductor industry. The method is built on the patent similarity and K-means clustering algorithm. The indirect relations among the patents in the complex industry are considered in the method. In addition, the age of the patent is taken into account to avoid identifying aged core patents. The method is demonstrated by exploring the core technology capabilities that support the platform technology portfolio of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).