The competitive situation of liver tissue engineering based on patent analysis / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: China is a country with high incidence of liver disease. Liver tissue engineering, which is still in the stage of exploration, has brought a new hope for treatment. OBJECTIVE: To provide advices and references for the development and innovation of liver tissue engineering based on patent analysis. METHODS: The number and development tendency, as well as the technology birthplace, target market, applicants, inventors and technical fields of patents in the field of liver tissue engineering in nearly 20 years were analyzed in this study. The keywords for full-text search included tissue engineering, tissue regenerate/repair, and hepatic/liver. The retrieval deadline was December 28, 2018. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: There is a rapid development in the field of the global liver tissue engineering. The compound growth rate in the past 10 years is 8.64%, of which invention patents account for 84.93%. China is the main technology birthplace; however, the number of tripartite patents of China is far less than that of the United States and Japan. China and the United States are the two most high-profile target markets in the field of liver tissue engineering, but the applicants are mostly from native instead of international. Meanwhile, there are 8 Chinese application institutions and 14 Chinese inventors ranking among the top 20 in the world in this field. In conclusion, liver tissue engineering has developed rapidly in China, but the lack of core technology is still an important issue. Therefore, we must improve our innovation capabilities and explore core technologies continuously to enhance our international competitiveness.