# A Study on Technology Competition of Graphene Biomedical Technology Based on Patent Analysis
## 5 Conclusions  
This study presents a systematic review that analyzes the TC of graphene related patents in the biomedical field, and this comprehensive framework integrates patent analysis and patent roadmap. Based on patent analysis, we employ annual trend of patent activities, competitive position of top assignees, and patent hotspots and fronts to assess the TC of graphene biomedical technology. In addition, we build two new kind of patent roadmaps from the perspectives of country and assignee separately. Graphene biomedical technology provides a useful case study through which the proposed patent analysis and patent roadmap approaches have been shown to be valid and robust. The initial effort has contributed to the target technology marketplace by identifying TC from patent information, not only enabling stakeholders to understand technological development trend under a dynamic perspective, but also encouraging them to make right decisions in future direction and patent strategic planning. Some interesting findings are as follows. First, there has been a rapid growth in the global patent application of graphene biomedical technology since 2012. Regarding the number of patents, China, the U.S., and Korea are the top three countries. Compared to the country (e.g., the U.S., Japan, and Korea) entering the market earlier, China, with a steadily growth in the number of patents, becomes a technology catcher and takes the lion's share in global market. Although the U.K, Germany and France play the key roles in patenting activities in European country/region, they still far behind assignees from Asian and the U.S. Second, this research investigated the top assignees with higher competition position in the patenting activity of graphene biomedical technology. Harvard University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Lockheed Martin Corporation have relatively higher technological innovation capability in technology strength, while Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. has an obvious competitive advantage in company resources. Currently no assignee obtains a competitive advantage in both technology strength as well as company resources. In addition, it should be recognized that most of the leading assignees are from universities and research institutes. In terms of high-strength patents, Lockheed Martin Corporation outstrips other assignees, followed successively by Harvard University, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., University of California, and Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics CAS, which illustrate their relatively stronger technological innovation capability in TC. Third, regarding patent hotspots and fronts in graphene biomedical technology, B12-K04 (Diagnosis and testing) is the most important technological field, followed by E05-U05C (Nanofilm), A12-V01 (Medicines, pharmaceuticals), B05-C06 (Elemental C or S), and D05-H09 (Testing and detection (Except Bacteria, Fungi, Viruses)). Lastly, based on country level patent roadmap and assignee level patent roadmap, we identify the potential technology opportunity, which indicating the fewer number of high value patents as well as fewer top assignees with high competition position in the above patent roadmaps. It is clear that E05-U05C (Nanofilm) with higher centrality as well as frequency is the most important patent hotspots and fronts in this field. According to country level patent roadmap, only the U.S. and China hold four high value patents in this field. In the assignee level patent roadmap, only seven assignees with high competition position are distributed their patents in this field. Therefore, E05-U05C (Nanofilm) will be the most important technology opportunity in graphene biomedical technology. One reason for this could be due to gradually mature of large-scale production of graphene film. The other reason is the demand of graphene film in biomedical fields, such as disease diagnosis, bone regeneration, glucose detection, artificial kidneys and dialysis.