Activating"Dormant Patents":The Impact of Knowl-edge Recombination Lag and Frequency on Key Core Technology Innovation
With the intensification of globalized competition and scien-tific and technological friction,it is urgent to break through key core technologies and get rid of the dilemma of being restricted by others as soon as possible.Compared with the pressing need for key core tech-nologies,the vast majority of patents in universities and research insti-tutes are in a dormant status with a relatively low transfer rate.Given the great potential of dormant patents in providing rich channels and opening up new ways of knowledge recombination,an effective path to promote key core technology innovation,we believe that the activation and utilization of dormant patents will provide technical support for the breakthrough of neck-sticking dilemma.Nevertheless,current research on dormant patents rarely focuses on key core technology innovations,which leaves a lack of theoretical guidance for recombining dormant patents to achieve key core technologies.Based on knowledge recom-bination theory and organizational learning theory,we investigate how to activate dormant patents to achieve key core technology innovation from the perspective of time dimension.Specifically,we start from the unique temporal characteristics of dor-mant patents and introduce the concept of recombination lag in order to investigate the impact of patents with different dormant durations on key core technology innovation.We further analyze the moderating effect of the recombination frequency of recombination trajectory and the maturity of the knowledge attributes on the relationship between dormant patents and key core technology innovations.Patents of Chi-na's chip manufacturing industry from 1985 to 2020 are collected as research sample.We first identify key core technology patents based on indicator system construction and entropy value method.Then,we operationalize the recombination lag,frequency and knowledge matu-rity by matching them with their forward and backward citations.Sub-sequently,we conduct an empirical study on the impact of activating dormant patents on the innovation of key core technologies.We found that the recombination lag has a U-shaped relationship with key core technology innovations,i.e.recombing patents that have been newly active or idle for a long time might significantly increase the likelihood of achieving innovation in key core technology.In addition,the recombination lag contributes more to key core technology innova-tions when knowledge is reused more frequently or at a higher level of maturity.In terms of recombinant frequency,more reuse increases the information flow of idle knowledge,which will undermine the decline in innovation value caused by longer inactivity.In terms of knowledge maturity,the applicability,reliability,and stability of knowledge will increase as supporting technologies emerge over time;at the same time,more mature knowledge also provides proven methodologies and better practice options for knowledge reuse.The contributions of this article are as follows.Firstly,the research findings provide theoretical and empirical support for the relationship between dormant patents and key core technology innovation.The study breaks the shackles of the common belief that key core technol-ogy innovation should rely on original,novel and basic research rather than old knowledge.Further,the study reveals what kind of"dormant"patents can be recombined to produce high-quality breakthrough inven-tions.Second,the study expands the boundaries of knowledge recom-bination with respect to different time horizons.Instead of a"one-size-fits-all"approach to the value attributes of new and old knowledge,the study argues that the innovation value of patents depends on the length of their inactivity.Finally,we introduce the concepts of recombination lag and recombination frequency to construct the information flow of knowledge recombination trajectories.We elucidate the interaction between the trajectory of knowledge use and its own attributes on the realization of the value of dormant patents,which enriches the research on information flow in organizational learning theory.Overall,the study quantifies the length of dormant patents by introduc-ing the concept of time lag and constructs a comprehensive analytical model of knowledge recombination lag,frequency,maturity and key core technology innovation.Our research findings provide empirical evidence for the positive effects of awakening and utilizing dormant patents on the performance of key core technology innovation.This opens up a novel realization path for breaking through the necklace dilemma and realizing self-reliance in key core technology.It also pro-vides theoretical support and practical reference for the activation and utilization of"dormant"scientific research results.
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