A Genetic Model of the Development of Modeling and Simulation
(Room S320C)
29 Nov 17
9:30 AM
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10:00 AM
Complex technologies, like Modeling and Simulation (M&S), show evidence of an evolutionary speciation that occurs when the technology is used by different companies in different geographical locations and for different purposes. In this paper we describe “patent genomics,” a genetic model of technology evolution that uses the patent database of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and its “class codes,” to create an “Innovation Genotype” that provides a genetic code of a technology in terms of the areas of knowledge contained in its patented inventions. Using class codes as genetic markers, we have analyzed ten years of M&S patents by all the companies doing M&S in four states, Alabama, Florida, Michigan, and Texas and show that M&S has evolved into different “species” by the insertion of company-dependent “genes” into the knowledge base of the companies in these states. We have also analyzed this speciation in time, to show how different knowledge components may grow or decay. In addition, we create inventor networks for individual companies whose nodes are inventors and whose links are the inventions they have created. Using these networks we identify the sources of innovation and the flow of knowledge in a company. The patent analysis across a state gives us the long-term evolutionary character of a technology while the inventor networks within a company give us the short-term developmental characteristics of a technology. This form of genetic analysis helps to identify the emergence of synergies within a company and between companies that can be applied both to solving new and complex problems and enabling the discovery of disruptive technologies. In short, we may discover the gene for “blackness” among a group of white swans that leads to a method of addressing a potential black swan event.