Exploring Patent Transformation Event: Forecasting Patent Transfer Time.

As the largest source of technical information around the world, patents are regarded as an essential crystallization and carrier of knowledge and technological innovation. Patent transformation is conducive not only to enhancing economic efficiency, but also to improving productivity and the rational utilization of resources. There is an imbalance between high patent ownership and low transformation rates. We try to predict the occurrence of transformation events from the patent assignment. However, there are some challenges in predicting patent transformation: (1) how to capture transformation features of patents, especially combined with the transfer time factor. (2) how to predict patent transfer time effectively. To address these challenges, a Patent Transfer Time Forecasting Model (PTTFM) is proposed. The model includes: (1) extraction of time-varying features of patents. (2) the patent transfer time is forecast using a Neural Temporal Point Process. By testing the model on patents under different classifications, the experimental results are obtained to show that the proposed model is applicable to predict the timing of patent assignment within a certain time frame, especially one month. Our work may facilitate patent transformation while interpretability is ensured for transformation events.