System and method for detecting and forecasting the emergence of technologies
View Patent ↗The system provided herein is a computer-implemented system that defines a social network using the linkages of technologies. According to one the teachings, the system looks for pandemic spread or integration of technology through this network to determine when an outbreak of a new technology is occurring.
1. A computer-implemented tool for use by technical workers to engineer and develop technological innovations more quickly and with heightened assurance that those technological innovations receive infusion of emerging new technologies, comprising:
a specially programmed computer that accesses a predefined data store containing information about published technical documents, the data store organizing the published documents according to a predetermined set of different technical areas and including information reflecting dates of first publication of said technical documents,
the computer being programmed to detect the publication of documents newly emerging in a first technological area and to assess whether the emergence in that first technical area is undergoing exponential growth;
the computer being further programmed to associate the first technical area in which exponential growth is detected with a second technical area,
wherein the second technical area is identified by using the computer to access a non-transitory computer readable memory storing a network representation of linkages among a plurality of different technical areas, including the first and second technical areas, with each of the linkages being coded based on historical data to indicate the likelihood that information about one technical area will flow by human interaction to another technical area,
the computer thereby providing information to a technical worker in the second technical area of the onset of the exponential growth in the first technical area, with assurance that the emerging technology in the first technical area is suitable for technologically improving the second technical area, based on the fact that connections between the first and second technical areas have occurred in the past.