ScholarWorks@경상국립대학교

초록

As technology convergence is recognized as a driver of innovation, the identification of technology convergence opportunities is critical to expanding a firm's technology portfolio. Recently, wearable technology has emerged as an important factor in creating new business opportunities and providing technology investment alternatives for firms in the era of Industry 4.0. Against this background, this study provides a new patent analysis framework for identifying and proposing technology convergence opportunities in the wearable field. Using 8,621 patents filed between 2011 and 2021, a case study was conducted to identify technological convergence opportunities by applying Word2Vec algorithm. The analysis framework can be divided into four stages, with the final stage recommending potential technology convergence opportunities for a specific candidate firm's technology area by calculating similarities between technology codes. This study aims to better understand the current status of wearable technology development as well as to propose a new methodology for capturing technology convergence opportunities in the wearable industry. The case study result suggests that the convergence of healthcare and ICT may provide new development opportunities. Furthermore, the results are expected to provide alternative perspectives on the development of new markets and technologies using wearable technology and can support the strategic decision-making on future technology planning in the wearable field.

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