Analysis on patents of Chinese materia medica extract and their innovation trends / 中草药

ABSTRACT

By analyzing the patent data of Chinese materia medica (CMM) extracts, the development situation and the trend of the industry were revealed and the suggestion for the industrial development in China was provided. Based on the Innography platform, the global patents of CMM extracts were retrieved and analyzed. The applicant and region distribution, technical hot topic, patent strength, and patent infringement risk were studied. Moreover, taking Taxus baccata as an example, the patent text clustering was carried out. The global herbal extract technique presented a rising trend. Patents were mainly applied in China, Japan, South Korea, and America. America had the most powerful comprehensive company and the largest amount of the high value patents, being in the advantage position in the technology of T. baccata extraction. The patent litigation number had declined recently and the most of plaintiffs of the litigations were technological medium and small-sized enterprises. Text clustering results showed that the extraction of T. baccata involved synthetic techniques. In recent years, the patent quantities of CMM herb extracts in China have increased rapidly, but the distribution of applicants was scattered. Additionally, the number of high-quality patents in China was significantly weaker than that in America and Japan. Therefore, domestic enterprises should make full use of modern technique to find new effective CMM ingredient and investigate new extraction procedures, in order to fundamentally strength the industrial competitiveness of CMM extracts in our country.