JP7341786B2 - Index calculation device and index calculation program - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an index calculation device and an index calculation program for calculating a predetermined index.

In recent years, attempts have been made to quantify the value of each patent by evaluating various patents.
An example of a technique for quantifying the value of such patents is disclosed in Patent Document 1. In the technology disclosed in Patent Document 1, a value indicating the value of each patent (hereinafter referred to as (referred to as the “patent score”).
By referring to the patent scores calculated in this way, users can smoothly proceed with negotiations on patent licenses and rights assignments, and use the contents of high-value patents as technical information. becomes possible.

Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2014-199661

By using a general technique such as the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1 mentioned above, a patent score indicating the value of each patent can be calculated. In this case, it is more desirable to be able to evaluate not only each patent but also each company (including individual inventors) that are patent applicants based on this patent score.

However, simply adding up the patent scores of all patents held by each company does not seem to be able to appropriately evaluate each company. Simply adding everything up, for example, a large company that owns a large amount of poorly rated patents with a low patent score is better than a venture company that owns a suitable number of highly rated patents with a high patent score. This is because the company is evaluated as an excellent company. In other words, this is no different from a simple comparison of company size.

The present invention has been made in view of this situation. The purpose is to provide an index calculation device and an index calculation method that are capable of calculating an index for appropriately evaluating each company based on patents held by each company.

The index calculation device according to the present invention includes a patent value calculation means for calculating a patent score, which is a value indicating the value of a patent, for each of a plurality of patents, a patent score calculated by the patent value calculation means, and a predetermined extraction method. an extraction means for extracting some of the patents in descending order of patent scores from the plurality of patents as extraction sources based on the conditions, and a patent score of each patent extracted by the extraction means corresponding to each patent. A corporate value calculation means is provided for summing the patent scores for each company and outputting the value of the patent score of each company after the summing as an index value indicating the corporate value of each company.

The index calculation program according to the present invention is an index calculation program that causes a computer to function as an index calculation device, and includes a patent value calculation means for calculating a patent score, which is a value indicating the value of a patent, for each of a plurality of patents; Extracting means for extracting some of the patents in order from the highest patent score using the plurality of patents as extraction sources based on the patent score calculated by the patent value calculation means and predetermined extraction conditions; and the extraction means a corporate value calculation means that adds up the patent scores of each patent extracted by the company for each company corresponding to each patent, and outputs the value of the patent score of each company after the addition as an index value indicating the corporate value of each company; The computer is made to function as an index calculation device comprising:

According to the present invention, it is possible to calculate an index for appropriately evaluating each company based on the patents each company owns.

1 is a block diagram showing an example of the overall configuration of an index calculation system according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of an index calculation device according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a table showing an example of a data structure of a patent information storage unit that is updated by the index calculation device according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a table showing an example of the data structure of a company information storage unit that is updated by the index calculation device according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a table showing an example of the data structure of a patent score storage unit that is updated by the index calculation device according to an embodiment of the present invention. 3 is a flowchart illustrating the flow of an index calculation process executed by an index calculation device according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 7 is an image diagram showing selection of companies regardless of industry by an index calculation device according to a modification of an embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, an example of an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
[System configuration]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of an index calculation system S according to this embodiment. As shown in FIG. 1, the index calculation system S includes an index calculation device 10, a patent information database 20, and a company information database 30. Each of these devices included in the index calculation system S can be realized by an electronic device having an information processing function, such as a server device or a personal computer.

Further, each device included in the index calculation system S is connected to be able to communicate with each other via a network N, as shown in the figure. Communication between these devices may be performed based on any communication method, and the communication method is not particularly limited. Further, the communication connection may be a wireless connection or a wired connection. Furthermore, communication between each device may be performed directly between the devices without going through the network N.

The patent information database 20 is a database that stores information regarding each patent filed by each company. Information about each patent includes, for example, bibliographic information that shows which company is the applicant or right holder of the patent, and information about the patent rights that have been granted since the patent application was filed for the invention, and the subsequent patent rights. Information on the progress up to its disappearance, organized and standardized data, etc. The index calculation device 10 uses information regarding each patent stored in the patent information database 20 to calculate an index value (hereinafter referred to as a "company score") indicating the corporate value of each company, etc., using the network N. Appropriately obtained through communication via.
The operating entity of this patent information database 20 may be the same as the user of the index calculation device 10, but does not necessarily have to be the same as the user of the index calculation device 10. For example, it may be a database managed by a company that provides information on patents or a public institution.

The company information database 30 is a database that stores information regarding each company. Information about each company includes, for example, the industry defined by the technical field of the company's business, information indicating the size of the company such as sales, market capitalization, and number of employees, royalty rate, and R&D (Research and Development). This is information indicating characteristics of the industry such as ratios. The index calculation device 10 appropriately acquires information regarding each patent stored in the company information database 30 through communication via the network N for purposes such as calculating a company score.
The operating entity of this corporate information database 30 may be the same as the user of the index calculation device 10, similar to the operating entity of the patent information database 20, but does not necessarily have to be the same as the user of the index calculation device 10. . For example, it may be a database managed by a company that provides information about companies or a public institution.

The index calculation device 10 performs "index calculation processing" which is a process unique to this embodiment.
Here, the index calculation process is a series of processes in which the index calculation device 10 calculates an index for appropriately evaluating each company based on patents owned by each company.

More specifically, in the index calculation process, the index calculation device 10 calculates a patent score, which is a value indicating the value of a patent, for each of a plurality of patents. Furthermore, the index calculation device 10 uses a plurality of patents as extraction sources and extracts some patents in order from the highest patent score based on the calculated patent score and predetermined extraction conditions. Then, the index calculation device 10 adds up the patent scores of the extracted patents for each company corresponding to each patent, and converts the value of the patent score of each company after the addition into an index value indicating the corporate value of each company (i.e. , corporate score).

In this type of index calculation process, rather than simply adding up the patent scores of all patents held by each company, some patents are extracted in descending order of their patent scores, and the extracted patent scores are A company is considered to be an excellent company if it owns multiple patents with a high rank (i.e., highly rated patents).

Then, the total value of the patent scores for each company is calculated for the patents with the higher patent scores (that is, the highly rated patents), and this is used as the company score for evaluating the company. This makes it possible to calculate an appropriate corporate score based on whether a company has highly rated patents, rather than simply whether it owns a large number of patents.
Therefore, according to the index calculation process, it is possible to solve the problem of calculating an index for appropriately evaluating each company based on the patents owned by each company.

Each device included in the index calculation system S has been described above. Note that although each device is illustrated one by one in the figure, this is merely an example, and the index calculation system S may include any number of these devices. For example, a plurality of patent information databases 20 and company information databases 30 may be provided for each company that provides them.

Further, for example, each of these devices may not be realized as separate devices, but may be realized as an integrated device. Furthermore, for example, each device may be realized by a combination of a plurality of devices. For example, it may be realized by a combination of a plurality of server devices existing as cloud servers.

[Configuration of index calculation device]
Next, the configuration of the index calculation device 10 will be explained with reference to the block diagram of FIG. 2. As shown in FIG. 2, the index calculation device 10 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 11, a ROM (Read Only Memory) 12, a RAM (Random Access Memory) 13, a communication section 14, a storage section 15, It includes an input section 16, an output section 17, and a signal line 18. As shown in the figure, these parts are connected to a bus by a signal line 18, and mutually transmit and receive signals.

The CPU 11 executes various processes according to programs recorded in the ROM 12 or programs loaded into the RAM 13 from the storage section 15.
The RAM 13 also appropriately stores data necessary for the CPU 11 to execute various processes.

The communication unit 14 performs communication control so that the CPU 11 communicates with other devices (for example, the patent information database 20 and the corporate information database 30).
The storage unit 15 is composed of a semiconductor memory such as a DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory), and stores various data.

The input unit 16 is comprised of external input devices such as various buttons and a touch panel, or a mouse and a keyboard, and inputs various information in response to user instructions.
The output unit 17 is composed of a display, a speaker, etc., and displays an image corresponding to the image data output by the CPU 11.

In the index calculation device 10, the above-mentioned index calculation processing is performed by each of these parts working together. When this index calculation process is executed, as shown in FIG. 115 works.
Further, in one area of the storage unit 15, a patent information storage unit 151, a company information storage unit 152, and a patent score storage unit 153 are set as storage areas.
Including cases not specifically mentioned below, data necessary for realizing each process is transmitted and received between these functional blocks at appropriate timings.

The patent information acquisition unit 111 acquires information related to patents, which is necessary in the index calculation process, from the patent information database 20 through communication via the network N. The specific content of the information regarding patents is as described above when explaining the patent information database 20. Further, the patent information acquisition unit 111 causes the patent information storage unit 151 to store information regarding the acquired patent. As a result, the patent information storage unit 151 stores information regarding the latest patents.

The company information acquisition unit 112 acquires information regarding the company, which is necessary in the index calculation process, from the company information database 30 through communication via the network N. The specific contents of the information regarding the company are as described above when explaining the company information database 30. Further, the company information acquisition unit 112 causes the company information storage unit 152 to store information regarding the acquired patent. As a result, the latest company information is stored in the company information storage section 152.

Note that the above-mentioned acquisition of patent-related information by the patent information acquisition unit 111 and storage in the patent information storage unit 151, and acquisition of company-related information by the company information acquisition unit 112 and storage in the company information storage unit 152, for example. , may be performed at a predetermined cycle, may be performed based on a user's operation instruction, or may be performed in conjunction with updates of the patent information database 20 and the corporate information database 30.

The patent value calculation unit 113 calculates a patent score based on information related to patents stored in the patent information storage unit 151. Although the method for calculating the patent score is not particularly limited, it will be assumed below as an example that the patent score is calculated using the calculation method disclosed in Patent Document 1 mentioned above. In the calculation method disclosed in Patent Document 1, a patent score is calculated based on progress information from the time an invention is filed for a patent, the patent right is granted, and the subsequent extinguishment of the patent right.

More specifically, the patent value calculation unit 113 first receives search conditions for extracting patents for which patent scores are to be calculated this time, based on the user's operation using the input unit 16 or the like. .
Although the conditions for searching for patents can be arbitrarily determined, as an example below, it is assumed that the search conditions are information corresponding to an "industry" defined by the business performed by a company. This industry can be classified in any way, but in the following explanation, as an example, it will be divided into pharmaceuticals, chemicals, machinery, metal products, construction, similar to the industry classification used in the stock market. The industry is divided into 10 industries: information and communications, precision machinery, electrical equipment, transportation equipment, and other products. Then, patents corresponding to any of these industries are used as targets for calculating the patent score.

In this embodiment, the reason why the patent score is calculated for each industry is that there are industries where the patent score tends to be high and there are industries where the patent score tends to be low, so regardless of the industry. This is because, if patent scores are calculated in advance, a problem may arise in which only patents in a specific industry rank high. Therefore, in this embodiment, the patent score is calculated for each industry (that is, each industry is treated as a population).

Here, the information regarding patents in the patent information database 20 includes information about which company corresponds to the patent. Therefore, each company is associated with each of the above-mentioned 10 industries in advance. For example, a company with the company name "Co., Ltd." is associated with a patent corresponding to the information/communications industry. Then, by entering the company name corresponding to the industry for which the patent score is to be calculated as a search condition, it is possible to extract only patents in this industry.

In addition, as another method, the patent information in the patent information database 20 includes IPC (International Patent Classification), CPC (Cooperative Patent Classification), F term (File Forming Term), and FI term as information for patent classification. Contains information such as (File Index). Therefore, the information for classifying these patents is associated with each of the above-mentioned 10 industries in advance. For example, a patent with an IPC of "G06F..." is associated with a patent corresponding to the information/communications industry. Then, by inputting information for classification of patents corresponding to the industry for which the patent score is to be calculated as a search condition, it is possible to extract only patents in this industry.

The search conditions may also include, for example, the upper limit of the number of patents to be extracted for which the patent score will be calculated (for example, 1000), the period that includes the application date and registration date, etc. It's okay.

Then, the patent value calculation unit 113 extracts a patent for which a patent score is to be calculated this time from the information related to patents stored in the patent information storage unit 151 based on the search conditions as described above.

Further, the patent value calculation unit 113 calculates a patent score for each extracted patent. For example, whether there is an appeal of appearance, whether there is a litigation judgment, the number of requests for invalidation trials, the number of documents cited by the inventor, the number of claims, the total number of pages, whether there is an application for requesting accelerated examination, whether there is an opposition, and the number of times information is provided. A patent score is calculated by substituting the following numbers as variables in a predetermined function: number of divisional applications, number of cited documents, number of interviews, number of inspection requests, presence or absence of foreign applications, and number of appeals. Note that Patent Document 1 discloses more detailed content of the calculation method, so further explanation will be omitted here.

Note that the calculation method disclosed in Patent Document 1 is only an example of a method for calculating a patent score, and in this embodiment, the patent score may be calculated using other calculation methods. . That is, in this embodiment, the patent score is a broad concept that collectively refers to values indicating the value of a patent, which are calculated by various calculation methods. Further, the patent score can be calculated at any stage after the patent application for the invention is filed until before the patent right expires (for example, during the patent application stage). Furthermore, the patent score may be calculated using only patents for which patent rights are currently in force, but may also include patents that are currently being applied for, or even patents whose patent rights have already expired. You may. That is, in this embodiment, it is possible to use various patent score calculation methods depending on the user's wishes.

The patent value calculation unit 113 stores the patent scores for each patent calculated in this way in the patent score storage unit 153 so that the scores can be sorted in descending order of the patent scores. This makes it possible to rank patents corresponding to a certain industry based on patent scores.

By repeating such processing while changing the industries corresponding to the patents to be calculated, it is possible to perform rankings based on patent scores for each industry.

The extraction unit 114 extracts patents used for calculating the company score as preprocessing for calculating the company score. To this end, the extraction unit 114 uses all the patents for which the patent value calculation unit 113 has calculated the patent scores as extraction sources, and extracts some patents in order from the highest patent score based on predetermined extraction conditions. The predetermined extraction condition is, for example, a condition that a predetermined range of patents are extracted in order from patents with high patent scores (for example, the top 10% of patents, the top 20% of patents, or the top 30% of patents). . Then, based on the extracted patents, a company score is calculated by a company value calculation unit 115, which will be described later. That is, other patents that are not extracted (for example, patents in the bottom 90%, patents in the bottom 80%, and patents in the bottom 70%) are not used in calculating the company score. The reason for doing this is, as mentioned above, to calculate an appropriate corporate score based on whether or not the company has highly rated patents, rather than simply whether or not it owns a large number of patents. be. In addition, by doing this, the company score can be calculated using only the extracted patents, which reduces the overall amount of calculation compared to the case where the company score is calculated only from all patents without extraction. be able to.

Further, the extraction unit 114 extracts patents in a predetermined range of higher ranks for each industry. The reason for this is that, similarly to the patent score calculation by the patent value calculation unit 113, trends for each industry are taken into consideration. In other words, for each industry, there are industries that tend to have high patent scores and industries that tend to have low patent scores, so if extraction is performed regardless of industry, there will be a problem that only patents from specific industries will be extracted. This is because it can occur.

The corporate value calculation unit 115 adds up the patent scores of the patents extracted by the patent value calculation unit 113 for each company corresponding to each patent, and calculates the value of the combined patent score of each company as the corporate value of each company. Calculated as a company score indicating the The calculation of this corporate score is also done for each industry, taking into consideration trends in each industry.

Further, in this case, the corporate value calculation unit 115 adjusts the corporate score by performing various weightings. For example, the corporate value calculation unit 115 performs weighting based on the corporate size, weighting based on the number of patents held, and weighting based on the number of patents held. Make adjustments.

First, in weighting based on company size, weighting is done so that the larger the company is set for each company, the smaller the weight coefficient (in other words, the smaller the company score after weighting). Let's do it. This means that the smaller the company, the more patents with higher patent scores will be utilized, so weighting is done from the perspective that the impact on the company score is greater. Furthermore, even when extraction is performed by the extraction unit 114 as described above, for example, a venture company that has a suitable number of highly rated patents with a high patent score is more likely to have a low patent score than a venture company that has a suitable number of highly rated patents with a high patent score. This is to suppress this tendency, as large companies that hold large amounts of patents tend to be evaluated as superior companies. As a result, for a company that owns a patent with a particularly high patent score (that is, a particularly good patent), the company score can be adjusted in consideration of the influence of this particularly good patent.

Here, whether the company is large or not can be determined based on, for example, sales and market capitalization, which the company information storage unit 152 stores as information regarding the company. Therefore, the higher the sales and market capitalization of a company, the smaller the weighting coefficient based on company size is set. As a simple method for setting the weighting coefficient, for example, the value of the reciprocal of sales or market capitalization can be set as the value of the weighting coefficient.
Then, the corporate value calculation unit 115 can adjust the corporate score in weighting based on the company size by multiplying the corporate score of the company by the weighting coefficient set in this way.

In addition, in weighting based on the number of patents held, the weighting coefficient is set to be smaller as the company ``holds more patents'' (in other words, the weighted patent score becomes smaller). weighting). This means that companies that hold fewer patents are more likely to utilize patents with higher patent scores, so they are weighted based on the perspective that they have a greater impact on the company's score. In addition, for the same reason as weighting based on company size, even when extraction is performed by the extraction unit 114, large companies tend to be evaluated as superior companies, so this tendency This is to suppress the As a result, for a company that owns a patent with a particularly high patent score (that is, a particularly good patent), the company score can be adjusted in consideration of the influence of this particularly good patent.

Here, the number of patents held by the company can be determined based on, for example, information on patent holders stored in the patent information storage unit 151 as information regarding patents. Therefore, the more patents a company owns, the smaller the weighting coefficient based on the number of patents it holds is set. As a simple method for setting this weighting coefficient, for example, the value of the reciprocal of the number of patents held can be set as the value of the weighting coefficient.
Then, the corporate value calculation unit 115 can adjust the corporate score in weighting based on the number of patents held by multiplying the corporate score of the company by the weighting coefficient set in this way.

The corporate value calculation unit 115 calculates the corporate score after weighting and adjustment as described above as the final corporate score. This makes it possible to calculate an appropriate corporate score based on whether a company has highly rated patents, rather than simply whether it owns a large number of patents. Further, a company score adjusted by weighting based on various viewpoints can be calculated as a final company score.

Note that the patent score of each patent may be subjected to a combination of the two weightings described above, or only one of them may be weighted. Alternatively, weighting may be performed using a method other than the two weighting methods described above. Alternatively, weighting may not be performed in some cases. That is, in this embodiment, it is possible to perform various weightings according to the user's wishes.

The corporate value calculation unit 115 outputs the corporate score calculated in this manner so that the user can refer to it. This output is realized, for example, by displaying on a display that constitutes the output section 17. In addition, for example, the company score may be printed on a paper medium by transmitting the company score to a printer (not shown) via the communication unit 14.

Further, the company score may be stored in one area of the storage unit 15 in order to be used in various analysis methods based on the company value. Alternatively, the company score may be transmitted to another device such as a personal computer (not shown) via the communication unit 14.

The user can utilize the company score output in this way for any purpose. For example, the user can perform various analyzes based on corporate value by referring to the output corporate score. Specifically, based on the correlation between the company score of this embodiment and other indicators (for example, the company's stock price, company size, stock price index, and operating profit), the user can It becomes possible to analyze trends in indicators, etc. This makes it possible, for example, to predict future trends in these other indicators based on the current company score.
That is, the company score of this embodiment can be effectively used for various purposes regardless of the purpose.

[data structure]
Next, an example of the data structure in the patent information storage section 151, the company information storage section 152, and the patent score storage section 153 used by each of the above-mentioned functional blocks will be explained with reference to FIGS. 3, 4, and 5. explain.

First, FIG. 3 shows an example of the data structure of the patent information storage section 151. As shown in FIG. 3, the patent information storage unit 151 includes attributes such as "company ID", "patent ID", and "patent information" as information related to patents. Each company ID is stored in association with a patent ID of a patent owned by the company corresponding to the company ID. Further, each patent ID is stored in association with patent information regarding the patent corresponding to that patent ID.

The company ID is information for identifying each company. Any information can be used as the company ID as long as it is unique for each company. For example, information listed in a patent application (e.g., applicant's name, identification number given by the patent office), information used to identify a company on the stock market (e.g., securities code (registered trademark), The company ID can be an ISIN (International Securities Identification Number), a management number assigned by the index calculation device 10 based on a user operation or a predetermined algorithm, or the like.

The patent ID is information for identifying each patent. Any information can be used as the patent ID as long as it is unique for each patent. For example, various numbers assigned by the Japan Patent Office (for example, application number, publication number, registration number), a management number assigned by the index calculation device 10 based on a user operation or a predetermined algorithm, etc. can be used as a patent ID. can do.

Patent information is information used exclusively by the patent value calculation unit 113 to calculate a patent score, and as described above, after an invention is filed for a patent, a patent right is granted, and the patent right lapses thereafter. Information on the progress up to this point, etc.

This information is updated as appropriate by the patent information acquisition unit 111 in accordance with new patent applications and changes in progress information.

Next, FIG. 4 shows an example of the data structure of the company information storage section 152. As shown in FIG. 4, the company information storage unit 152 includes attributes of "company ID" and "company information" as information regarding the company. Each company ID is stored in association with company information of the company corresponding to that company ID.

The company ID is information for identifying each company, and is the same information as the company ID used in the patent information storage section 151.

The company information is information used exclusively by the company value calculation unit 115 to calculate a company score (and weighting for that purpose), and includes information such as sales and market capitalization, as described above. The specific contents of these pieces of information have been described above when explaining the corporate value calculation unit 115, so a repeated explanation will be omitted here.
In addition, the company information also includes information such as royalty rates and R&D (Research and Development) ratios, which are information used by the business value calculation unit 115 to select companies. Information such as the selection of companies, royalty rates, and R&D ratios by the business value calculation unit 115 will be described later as a third modification.

This information is updated as appropriate by the company information acquisition unit 112 in accordance with the establishment of a new company or changes in company information.

Next, FIG. 5 shows an example of the data structure of the patent score storage section 153. As shown in FIG. 5, the patent score storage unit 153 includes attributes such as "company ID", "patent ID", and "patent score" as information related to patents. Each company ID is stored in association with a patent ID of a patent owned by the company corresponding to the company ID. Further, each patent ID is stored in association with the patent score of the patent corresponding to that patent ID.

The company ID is information for identifying each company, and is the same information as the company ID used in the patent information storage section 151 and the company information storage section 152.

The patent ID is information for identifying each patent, and is the same information as the patent ID used in the patent information storage section 151.
The patent score is a patent score calculated by the patent value calculation unit 113 as described above.

These pieces of information are appropriately updated by the patent value calculation unit 113 as the patent value calculation unit 113 calculates the patent score.

The data structures of the patent information storage section 151, the company information storage section 152, and the patent score storage section 153 have been described above. Each of these data structures includes a common company ID as described above. Therefore, each functional block included in the index calculation device 10 searches other data structures using one of the company IDs included in each data structure as a search key, thereby searching for various information corresponding to this company ID. Can be extracted from each data structure. In other words, each of these data structures functions as a relational database associated by company ID.
Therefore, each functional block included in the index calculation device 10 can appropriately extract and use information necessary for its own processing across each data structure based on the company ID.

[Indicator calculation process]
Next, the flow of the index calculation process executed by the index calculation device 10 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 6. The index calculation process is executed when the index calculation device 10 is started.

In step S11, the patent information acquisition unit 111 and the company information acquisition unit 112 determine whether to update each piece of information stored in the patent information storage unit 151 and the company information storage unit 152. For example, the patent information acquisition unit 111 and the company information acquisition unit 112 are configured to detect information when the respective information is not stored in either the patent information storage unit 151 or the company information storage unit 152, or when a predetermined cycle has elapsed since the information was once stored. Each piece of information is updated when the user updates the information or when the user instructs the update. If each piece of information is to be updated, the determination in step S11 is Yes, and the process proceeds to step S12. On the other hand, if each piece of information is not updated, the determination in step S11 is No, and the process proceeds to step S14.

In step S12, the patent information acquisition unit 111 acquires information regarding patents from the patent information database 20 through communication via the network N. Further, the patent information acquisition unit 111 causes the patent information storage unit 151 to store information regarding the acquired patent.

In step S13, the company information acquisition unit 112 acquires information regarding the company from the company information database 30 through communication via the network N. Further, the company information acquisition unit 112 causes the company information storage unit 152 to store information regarding the acquired patent. Thereafter, the process is repeated from the determination in step S11.

In step S14, the patent value calculation unit 113 determines whether or not to calculate a patent score. The patent value calculation unit 113 calculates, for example, when the patent score is not stored in the patent score storage unit 153, when a predetermined period has elapsed since the patent score was once stored, or when there is no instruction from the user to calculate the patent score. The patent score is calculated if the If the patent score is to be calculated, the determination in step S14 is Yes, and the process proceeds to step S15. On the other hand, if the patent score is not to be calculated, the determination in step S is No, and the process proceeds to step S16.

In step S15, the patent value calculation unit 113 calculates a patent score. Further, the patent value calculation unit 113 stores the calculated patent score in the patent score storage unit 153. Thereafter, the process is repeated from the determination in step S11.

In step S16, the extraction unit 114 and the corporate value calculation unit 115 determine whether to calculate a corporate score. For example, the extraction unit 114 and the corporate value calculation unit 115 calculate a corporate score when a user instructs the calculation of a corporate score. If the company score is to be calculated, the determination in step S16 is Yes, and the process proceeds to step S17. On the other hand, if the company score is not calculated, the determination in step S16 is No, and the process is repeated from the determination in step S11.

In step S17, the extraction unit 114 extracts patents used for calculating the company score as preprocessing for calculating the company score.

In step S18, the corporate value calculation unit 115 adds up the patent scores of the patents extracted by the extraction unit 114 for each company corresponding to each patent, and calculates the value of the patent score of each company after the addition. Calculated as a company score that indicates corporate value.

In step S19, the corporate value calculation unit 115 determines a weighting coefficient for weighting.

In step S20, the corporate value calculation unit 115 calculates a final corporate score by weighting and adjusting the corporate score based on the weighting coefficient determined in step S19. Further, the corporate value calculation unit 115 appropriately outputs the calculated final corporate score. This ends the process.

According to the index calculation process explained above, it is possible to calculate an appropriate company score based on whether or not the company has highly rated patents, rather than simply whether or not it owns a large number of patents. . Further, a company score adjusted by weighting based on various viewpoints can be calculated as a final company score.
Therefore, according to the index calculation process, it is possible to solve the problem of calculating an index for appropriately evaluating each company based on the patents owned by each company.

[Modified example]
Although the embodiment of the present invention has been described above, this embodiment is merely an example and does not limit the technical scope of the present invention. The present invention can take various other embodiments, and furthermore, various changes such as omissions and substitutions can be made without departing from the gist of the present invention. These embodiments and modifications thereof are included within the scope and gist of the invention described in this specification and the like, and are also included within the scope of the invention described in the claims and its equivalents.
For example, the embodiment of the present invention may be modified as in the following modification example.

<First modification example>
In the embodiment described above, the corporate value calculation unit 115 outputs the corporate score by displaying the corporate score on the screen, printing it on paper, or transmitting it to another terminal. The output is not limited to this, and may be output using other methods.

For example, not only the final company score but also various data used in the process of calculating this company score may be output. Specifically, the company score before adjustment by weighting, the patent score of each patent, the information related to patents stored in the patent information storage unit 151, and the information related to companies stored in the company information storage unit 152. may also be output.

<Second modification example>
In addition, as another modification that performs other output, for example, data that assists the user in utilizing the company score may also be output. Specifically, other indicators (for example, the company's stock price, company size, stock price index, and operating profit) may be output together with the company score.

Further, in this case, the trends in the company score over time and the trends in other indicators over time may be compared and output, for example, in the form of a graph. When producing such an output, company scores and other indicators are calculated based on information regarding patents and information regarding companies at a certain point in the past.

This calculation is then repeated from a certain point in the past while changing other points in the past. By calculating the company score and other indicators at each of a plurality of past points in this way, it becomes possible to specify the company score and other indicators. That is, the index calculation device 10 is capable of not only calculating the current company score, but also calculating past company scores based on past information, and calculating changes in company scores.

<Third modification example>
In the embodiment described above, company scores were calculated for each industry. In this case, based on the company scores calculated in this way, top companies in each industry may be selected in a ranking format, and the selected companies may be output. For example, the top 10 companies with company scores for each industry may be selected in a ranking format, and this may be output. This allows the user to know which companies are considered promising for each industry based on the company scores.

In addition, this may be further modified to select a predetermined number of companies regardless of industry based on trends for each industry. The selection of companies regardless of industry in this modification will be explained with reference to FIG. 7. In this example, similarly to the embodiment described above, it is assumed that there are 10 industries.

First, when selecting each industry, an equal number of companies are selected for each industry (in the figure, the top 10 companies for each industry) are selected, as shown in Figure 7 as "Number of companies selected by industry". be done. As a result, a total of 100 companies, for example, 10 industries x 10 companies, are selected.

However, there may be cases in which there are many companies in a certain industry that are considered promising based on company scores. Therefore, it is conceivable to select a predetermined number of companies regardless of industry based on trends in each industry. However, as mentioned above, for each industry, patent scores (and company scores calculated based on this) tend to be high, while patent scores (and company scores calculated based on this) tend to be low. The problem is that there are different types of industries.
Therefore, if we select an equal number of companies in each industry without considering these trends in each industry, companies in other industries with higher corporate scores than companies selected from other industries will They may not be selected.

Therefore, in this modification, in order to reduce such differences between industries, the number of selections for each industry is determined by weighting based on the tendency of each industry. In addition, companies will be selected according to the determined number of selections. Then, the selected companies are output.
Specifically, in weighting based on trends for each industry, the weighting coefficient is set to be larger for companies in ``industries in which patents have a higher impact on companies'' (i.e., weighting Weighting is performed so that the number of later selections becomes larger. This means that in industries where patents have a higher degree of influence on companies, there are more companies with higher company scores, so weighting is performed from the perspective of selecting a larger number of companies accordingly.

Here, whether or not the industry is one in which patents have a high degree of influence on the company can be determined based on, for example, the royalty rate and R&D ratio that the company information storage unit 152 stores as information regarding the company. Therefore, the higher the royalty rate and the higher the R&D ratio of a company, the higher the weighting coefficient based on the degree of influence that patents have on the company is set.
Then, the corporate value calculation unit 115 can select a predetermined number of companies based on the trends of each industry by multiplying the number of companies selected for each industry by the weighting coefficient set in this way.

In this way, in this modified example, a predetermined number of companies are selected regardless of industry based on the trends of each industry, so companies from other industries that have a higher company score than companies selected from other industries are selected. Problems such as companies not being selected can be suppressed. In other words, it is possible to select a predetermined number of companies regardless of industry, taking into consideration differences between industries.
As an example, if a predetermined number of companies are selected regardless of industry after weighting based on the trends of each industry, the number of selected companies regardless of industry will be Regardless of industry, a predetermined number (in the figure, the top 100 companies regardless of industry) are selected. As a result, for example, in the example shown in FIG. 7, it can be seen that there are many companies considered to be promising based on patent scores in the "pharmaceuticals" field for which 16 companies were selected. This makes it possible to evaluate not only companies, but also industries.

Although some modifications of the embodiment described above have been given, the contents of these several modifications may be combined.

[Implementation using hardware and software]
Each device included in the above-described embodiments is not limited to the aspects of the above-described embodiments, and can be realized by general electronic equipment having an information processing function.
Furthermore, the series of processes described above can be executed by hardware or by software. Further, one functional block may be configured by a single piece of hardware, a single piece of software, or a combination thereof.
In other words, the functional configuration illustrated in FIG. 2 is merely an example and is not particularly limited. In other words, it is sufficient that the index calculation system S has a function that can execute the above-mentioned series of processes as a whole, and the type of functional blocks used to realize this function is not particularly limited to the example shown in FIG. 2. .

For example, the functional configuration included in this embodiment can be realized by a processor that executes arithmetic processing, and processors that can be used in this embodiment include various types of processors such as a single processor, a multiprocessor, and a multicore processor. In addition to those configured by a single processing device, there are also configurations in which these various processing devices are combined with a processing circuit such as an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) or an FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array).

When a series of processes is executed by software, a program constituting the software is installed on a computer or the like from a network or a recording medium.
The computer may be a computer built into dedicated hardware. Further, the computer may be a computer that can execute various functions by installing various programs, such as a general-purpose personal computer.

A recording medium containing such a program may be provided to the user by being distributed separately from the main body of the device in order to provide the program to the user, or may be provided to the user in a state where it is pre-installed in the main body of the device. Good too. The storage medium distributed separately from the main body of the apparatus is, for example, a magnetic disk (including a floppy disk), an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, or the like. Optical discs include, for example, CD-ROMs (Compact Disc-Read Only Memory), DVDs (Digital Versatile Discs), Blu-ray (registered trademark) Discs, and the like. The magneto-optical disk is composed of an MD (Mini Disc) or the like. In addition, the recording medium provided to the user in a state that is pre-installed in the main body of the apparatus is, for example, a ROM 12 in FIG. 2 in which a program is recorded, or a storage device such as a hard disk that implements the storage section 15 in FIG. be done.

Note that in this specification, the step of writing a program to be recorded on a recording medium is not only a process that is performed chronologically in accordance with the order, but also a process that is not necessarily performed chronologically but in parallel or individually. It also includes the processing to be executed.
Furthermore, in this specification, the term system refers to an overall device composed of a plurality of devices, a plurality of means, and the like.

10 Index calculation device 20 Patent information database 30 Company information database 11 CPU
12 ROM
13 RAM
14 Communication section 15 Storage section 16 Input section 17 Output section 18 Signal line 111 Patent information acquisition section 112 Corporate information acquisition section 113 Patent value calculation section 114 Extraction section 115 Corporate value calculation section 151 Patent information storage section 152 Corporate information storage section 153 Patent Score storage unit N Network S Index calculation system

Claims (7)

Patent value calculation means for calculating a patent score, which is a value indicating the value of a patent, for each of the plurality of patents;
Extracting means for extracting some patents in order from the highest patent score using the plurality of patents as extraction sources based on the patent score calculated by the patent value calculation means and predetermined extraction conditions;
Corporate value calculation in which the patent scores of the respective patents extracted by the extraction means are summed up for each company corresponding to each patent, and the value of the patent score of each company after the summation is output as an index value indicating the corporate value of each company. means and
Equipped with
The patent value calculation means calculates the patent score for each industry of the company,
The extraction means performs the extraction for each industry of the company,
When the corporate value calculation means outputs the value of the patent score of each company after the addition as an index value indicating the corporate value of each company, the corporate value calculation means performs first weighting based on the tendency of each industry, thereby calculating the value of each company's patent score for each industry. determine the number of selected companies, and select companies according to the determined number of selected companies,
The corporate value calculation means performs the first weighting such that the weighting coefficient becomes larger for a company in an industry in which a patent set for each industry has a higher degree of influence on the company;
Index calculation device. The degree of influence that the patent has on a company is set higher as the industry type of the company has a higher royalty rate and/or R&D (Research and Development) ratio.
The index calculation device according to claim 1. The corporate value calculation means adjusts the index value indicating the corporate value of each company by performing a second weighting based on the size of the company when summing the patent scores for each company corresponding to each patent. conduct,
The corporate value calculation means performs the second weighting such that the larger the company, the smaller the weighting coefficient.
The index calculation device according to claim 1 or 2. The scale of the company is set larger as the industry of the company has higher sales and/or market capitalization.
The index calculation device according to claim 3. The corporate value calculation means calculates an index value indicating the corporate value of each company by performing a third weighting based on the number of patents held when summing the patent scores for each company corresponding to each patent. Adjust the
The corporate value calculation means performs the third weighting such that the more patents the company owns, the smaller the weighting coefficient becomes.
The index calculation device according to any one of claims 1 to 4. The corporate value calculation means contrasts and outputs a chronological transition of an index value indicating the corporate value of each company with a chronological transition of each company's stock price.
The index calculation device according to any one of claims 1 to 5. An index calculation program that causes a computer to function as an index calculation device,
Patent value calculation means for calculating a patent score, which is a value indicating the value of a patent, for each of the plurality of patents;
Extracting means for extracting some patents in order from the highest patent score using the plurality of patents as extraction sources based on the patent score calculated by the patent value calculation means and predetermined extraction conditions;
A corporate value in which the patent scores of the respective patents extracted by the extraction means are summed up for each company corresponding to each patent, and the value of the patent score of each company after the summation is output as an index value indicating the corporate value of each company. calculation means,
Equipped with
The patent value calculation means calculates the patent score for each industry of the company,
The extraction means performs the extraction for each industry of the company,
When the corporate value calculation means outputs the value of the patent score of each company after the addition as an index value indicating the corporate value of each company, the corporate value calculation means performs weighting based on the tendency of each industry to select each industry. determine the number, and select companies according to the determined number of selections,
The corporate value calculation means performs the weighting such that the weighting coefficient becomes larger for a company in an industry in which a patent set for each industry has a higher degree of influence on the company.
An index calculation program that causes the computer to function as an index calculation device.

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