patent trends in printed electronics and printed tags · (eas w/1 tag or electronic article...

Abstract— Printed electronics (PE) refers to the application of

various printing techniques for the fabrication of electronic circuits

and devices. This emerging discipline promises to revolutionize the

field of electronics and provides an extension to conventional

electronics by enabling the mass production of low cost, flexible

digital devices in a wide array of substrates, such as textiles, paper,

or plastic. Printed Tags are the best examples of this technology

which can provides a promising potential pathway toward the

realization of ultra low-cost Intelligent tags which can be used for

the purposes such as item-level tracking. For the past two decades

there has been considerable research and development activity and

business interests in this promising technology. As for any

technology, knowledge created is in the form of Publications and

Patents. A technology life cycle (TLC) for a specific technology

based on Patent data helps to determine the present state of

technology in its life cycle, which will act as the basis on which

decisions regarding how to proceed with further business

investments and technological advancement can be made. In this

work in order to retrieve the patent registration data in various

patent databases, we build a query system on the basis of which we

determine and trace yearly patent registration record in the field of

Printed Electronics. This information will be useful to understand

the present state of the Technologies under consideration.

Keywords— Printed Electronics, Printed Tags, USPTO, WIPO,

Worldwide Patent Database, Technology Life Cycle, S Curve,

USPTO Classes.

I. INTRODUCTION

RINTED electronics has emerged as a potential

technology for many cost effective and large area

applications as in tags, displays, sensors, OLED’s and

photovoltaic’s. This technology is currently experiencing a

growing interest and garnering attention in both academic

and industrial aspects of Research and Development. Digital

Devices produced by Printed Electronics provide two

principle advantages over Conventional Electronics, firstly

they can be fabricated at Low Temperature and allow simple

integrated circuits to be fabricated at extremely low cost for

various large area applications such as radio-frequency

identification tags, In a similar fashion like printing on paper

they can be used to “print” disposable Electronics Circuits.

1Manipal Technologies Limited, Manipal, India

2Industrial and Management Engineering, Indian Institute of

Technology Kanpur, India 3National Centre for Flexible Electronics, Indian Institute of

Technology Kanpur, India *Corresponding author’s e-mail: [email protected]

Similar to the bunch of potential Printed Electronics

products, Passive Printed Tags have applications in diverse

areas like asset management, monitoring, identifying and

tracking of people especially in work environments such as

military bases, power plants, airports, hospitals, refineries and

access restricted areas is emerging. The necessity for human

moment monitoring by tagging is emerging, where the tag

will be external to the body. This kind of application requires

bulky wrist bands or ID badges, which can be printed [1].

During day to day operations Tags are expected to lead to

Improvements in automation, inventory control, and

checkout/purchasing operations [2]. Thereby Printed

electronics holds promise for realizing ultra low cost Printed

Tags.

Based on the importance of printed electronics and Printed

Tags there has been incremental growth in Research and

Development in this sector. However, research so far has paid

very little attention to determine the nature of evolution of

this technology and the trends emerging [3].

A patent is used as a proxy for technology or knowledge

itself [6]. Broadly patents are accepted as a quantitative

measure of the performance of investment in research and

development (R&D) [4]. Using patent data there have been

lots of studies on the performance of technological

innovation. For the inception of any such studies there is

requirement to determine the Number of patents being filed

for the entire technology [5]. Further investments in an

Innovative Technology are done on the basis of the stage in

which a particular technology is in the technology life cycle

(TLC). Patent data can be used to predict the success and the

present state of technology [6]. During formulating strategy

for technical collaborations and investments, it is critical to

know the countries and current assignees which are holding

the highest number of patents in the field of interest. We will

showcase these aspects for Printed Electronics Technology.

II. PATENT DATABASES

Patent provide the legal rights to Inventor within the

geographical area in which a patent is filed. Therefore a

Inventor will file a patent in the countries in which Inventor

determines his Intellectual knowledge will be useful and can

have commercial viability. All the patents for a are not filed

in one particular patent database. To understand the

Technological Evolution it is important to consider various

patent databases.

For the purpose of Patent retrieval and analysis we have

used lexis nexis total patent database

(https://www.lexisnexis.com/totalpatent/signonForm.do). We

Patent Trends in Printed Electronics and Printed

Tags

Basanagouda B. Patil1,2,3

, Shashi Shekhar Mishra2, and Y. N. Mohapatra

3

P

International Journal of Computer Science and Electronics Engineering (IJCSEE) Volume 4, Issue 1 (2016) ISSN 2320–4028 (Online)

21

have segregated patent databases into USPTO (United States

Patent and Trademark Office), WIPO (World Intellectual

Property Organization) and Worldwide Patent Data Bases

(Includes all the major Patent Granting agencies of the

world). We trace the number of patents that are filed for both

Printed Electronics Technology and Printed Tags in all these

patent data bases. During the process of our search we have

considered both the granted and assigned patents, along with

removing family member duplicates.

III. TECHNOLOGICAL LIFE CYCLE (GROWTH CURVE)

A patent growth curve as depicted in Fig.1 is an empirical

model which helps to determine the present stage of

technological evolution. It is obtained by plotting number of

patents filed with respect to time based on historical data [6].

SaturationGrowth

IIII

Accu

mu

late

d n

um

ber

of

pate

nts

Time

II

Initiation

Fig. 1 S-curve of TLC [6], where regions I, II and III represent the

initiation, growth and saturation stages, respectively.

IV. PATENT TRENDS IN PRINTED ELECTRONICS

We have identified trends in the number of patents filed

and granted in printed electronics at USPTO, WIPO and

Worldwide Patent Data Base. Previously there has been

efforts on similar lines by [6] but they have considered very

basic aspects of PE Technology and their query was restricted

to very few potential products of the Technology and was

limited to the year 2012, after which we have noticed there

are considerable changes in the rate of patents filed.

Our Query as per table.1 is created based on expert opinion

and is concatenated with logical and between Printing

processes and the printed Products, which means all the

Patents noted in the bibliography include both (a) one of the

printing process among sheet to sheet , roll to roll , gravure

,offset, flexo, flexography, screen inkjet and (b) one of the

appreciable printable products among solar cell, filter, panel

display, printed circuit board, flat panel display, RFID tag,

diode, capacitor, TFT, circuit, memory, display, sensor.

TABLE I

PRINTED ELECTRONICS PATENT RETRIEVAL QUERY

(((sheet or "sheet to sheet" or "sheet-to-sheet") w/1 print) or ((roll or "roll to

roll" or "roll-to-roll") w/1 print) or ((gravure or offset) w/1 print) or ((flexo

w/1 print) or flexography) or (screen w/1 print) and (stencil or squeeze or

mesh) or (inkjet w/1 print) and (sylinge or cylinder or nozzle)) and ((((solar

w/1 cell or organic) or photovoltaic or OPV) and flexible) or

(((electromagnetic w/1 interference) or EMI) and (filter w/3 film) and

flexible) or (((panel w/1 display) or FPD) and (!flat) and flexible) or

((((radio w/1 frequency) w/1 identification) or RFID) and flexible) or

((flexible w/1 print) and (circuit and board)) or (FPCB) or (((((organic or

light) w/1 emitting) w/1 diode) or OLED) and flexible) or (RFID and

flexible)or (Tag and flexible) or (Diode and flexible) or (Capacitor and

flexible) or (TFT and flexible) or (circuit and flexible) or (memory and

flexible) or (display and flexible) or (sensor and Flexible)))

1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

Nu

mb

er

Of

Pate

nts

Year

USPTO

WIPO

World Wide

Patent Data Base

Fig. 2 Printed Electronics: Trends of Patents filed from 1975 to 2015

Number of patents filed as per Fig.2 follows the S Curve.

Observing the worldwide patent database it can be clearly

noticed that from 1975 to 1995 the pace of growth number of

patent filed was very minimal and the technology as per TLC

was in the R & D Stage, from 1995 to 2000 the transition

from stage.1 to stage.2 began to take place and leading to

growth in the pace of number of patents generated per year.

Further, the nature of growth from 2000 to 2015 can be

clearly observed from Fig.3. It is clear that the number of

patents filed form year 2000 to 2005 had a higher growth and

the technology was at the lower part of the Growth phased.

2004 to 2006 saw a rapid increase in the number of patents

filed and transition from lower part of growth phase to higher

part of growth phase too place. From 2006-2011, there was

considerable increase in the number of patents filed but the

rate of growth was less than previous five years duration. It

can be observed that from 2011 to 2015 number of patents

being filed is almost constant and give the sense that

transition from stage 2 to stage 3 has began. Similar

conclusions can be derived from USPTO and WIPO patent

bases but due to lesser number of patents filed in them, stage

of the TLC concluded by them need not be true for the whole

technology.


22

2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

Nu

mb

er

Of

Pate

nts

Year

USPTO

WIPO

World Wide

Patent Data Bases

Fig. 3 Printed Electronics: Trends of Patents filed from 1975 to 2015

V. PATENT TRENDS IN PRINTED TAGS

Large figures and tables may span both columns.

Printed Tags are the most widely Researched topic in the field

of Printed Electronics. However, there has been no

considerable effort to determine the state of the Technology of

the Printed Tags. Considering this Research gap we have

initiated the process of understanding the evolution of patent

specially pertaining to Printed Tags. To determine the same

as in section IV based on the expert opinion we have build the

query to determine the number of Printed Tags.

In the case of Printed Tags, in order to make the search

process more effective we have just considered patents which

have the chosen keywords in Title, abstracts or claims as

indicated in Table 2.

TABLE II

PRINTED ELECTRONICS PATENT RETRIEVAL QUERY

(((RFID or HF RFID or HF – RFID or UHF RFID or UHF – RFID or Radio

Frequency Identification) w/1 tag) or ((nfc or near field communication) w/1

tag) or (Temperature w/1 tag) or (Sensor w/1 tag) or (Packaging w/1 tag) or

(Ph w/1 tag) or (memory w/1 tag) or (active w/1 tag or passive w/1 tag) or

(EAS w/1 tag or Electronic Article Surveillance w/1 tag) or (printed w/1 tag)

or (organic w/1 tag)) and (flexible) and (printed)

1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Nu

mb

er

of

pate

nts

Years

UPSTO

WIPO

World Wide

Patent Data Bases

Fig. 4 Printed Tags: Trends of Patents filed from 1975 to 2015

Number of patents filed as per Fig.4 follows the S Curve.

Observing the worldwide patent database it can be clearly

noticed that from 1975 to 2000 the pace of growth number of

patent filed was very minimal and the technology as per TLC

was in the R&D stage. From 2000 to 2003 the transition from

Stage.1 to Stage.2 began to take place and leading to growth

in the pace of number of patents generated per year. Further,

the nature of growth from 2003 to 2015 can be seen to in the

growing pace with varied pace.

2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Patents Evolution : Flexible and Printed Tags

Nu

mb

er

of

pate

nts

Year

UPSTO

WIPO

All Patent Data Base

Fig. 5 Printed Tags: Trends of Patents filed from 2000 to 2015

From Fig.5 It is clear that the number of patents filed,

registered significant growth form year 2003 to 2007.

Although the growth started again from 2012 to 2015, there

was a slump in the same from 2008 to 2012. Therefore the

Disruption which took place in the year 2008 are to be

determined which lead to such a regain in the pace of growth.

VI. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Patent data serves as the basis to determine the present

state of a particular technology in the TLC. We traced the

Patents evolution from 1975 to 2015 in the field of Printed

Electronics Technology in general and Printed Tags in

particular. We could find that in terms of number of patents

field PE Technology as a whole as of 2015 is in onset of the

saturation whereas Printed Tags Technology is in the growth

Stage.

As part of future work one can forecast the number of

probable patents that can be filed in the near future. Also it

will be essentially to do technical analysis to find out certain

facts like reasons for decrease in the growth of patents in PE

from 2003 to 2007 and subsequent increase at the later stages.

PE Technology as a whole is at the onset of the saturation.

Therefore one can apply diffusion models such as Bass

diffusion model or its variants to determine the diffusion of

the sales, which will give directions to the investor to invest

in this particular technology.


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VII. ACKNOWLEGEMENT

We are thankful to Mr. SK. Rafi, Mr. Amruth C, Mr.

Upkar K. Verma and Ms. Priyanka Sharma students at IIT

Kanpur, Mr. Malay Mishra IP Sales Specialist in LexisNexis

and Mr. Ravi Pandey from SIDBI-IIT Kanpur, for their

support.

REFERENCES

[1] V Sanchez-Romaguera, M. A. Ziai, D. Oyeka et al., “Towards Inkjet-

Printed Low Cost Passive UHF RFID Skin Mounted Tattoo Paper Tags

Based On Silver Nanoparticle Inks” J. Mater. Chem. C, vol. 1, pp. 6395–

640, 2013.

[2] V. Subramanian, J. M. J. Fréchet, P. C. Chang et al., “Progress Toward

Development of All-Printed, RFID Tags: Materials, Processes, and

Devices”, Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 93, pp. 7, JULY 2005.

[3] Serkan Altuntas, Turkay Dereli, Andrew Kusiak et al., “Forecasting

technology success based on patent data”, Technological Forecasting &

Social Change, vol. 96, pp. 202–214, 2015.

[4] Misuk Lee, Kwangduk Kim, Youngsang Cho, “A study on the relationship

between technology diffusion and new product diffusion”, Technological

Forecasting & Social Change, Vol. 77, pp. 796–802, June 2010.

[5] Janghyeok Yoon, Youngjin Park, Mujin Kim et al., “Tracing evolving

trends in printed electronics using patent information” J Nanopart. Res.,

vol. 16, pp. 2471, 2014.

[6] C. Y. Liu, J. C. Wang, “Forecasting the development of the biped robot

walking technique in Japan through S-curve model analysis”

Scientometrics, vol. 82, pp. 21-36, 2010.


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