Analyzing offshore wind power patent portfolios by using data clustering

Abstract

Offshore wind power has been extremely popular in recent years, and in the energy technology field, relevant research has been increasingly conducted. However, research regarding patent portfolios is still insufficient. The purpose of this research is to study the status of mainstream offshore wind power technology and patent portfolios and to investi-gate major assignees and countries to obtain a thorough understanding of the developmental trends of offshore wind power technology. The findings may be used by the government and industry for designing additional strategic devel-opment proposals. Data mining methods, such as multiple correspondence analyses and k-means clustering, were im-plemented to explore the competing technological and strategic-group relationships within the offshore wind power industry. The results indicate that the technological positions and patent portfolios of the countries and manufacturers are different. Additional technological development strategy recommendations were proposed for the offshore wind power industry.