Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time.

Theories of scientific and technological change view discovery and invention as endogenous processes1,2, wherein previous accumulated knowledge enables future progress by allowing researchers to, in Newton's words, 'stand on the shoulders of giants'3-7. Recent decades have witnessed exponential growth in the volume of new scientific and technological knowledge, thereby creating conditions that should be ripe for major advances8,9. Yet contrary to this view, studies suggest that progress is slowing in several major fields10,11. Here, we analyse these claims at scale across six decades, using data on 45 million papers and 3.9 million patents from six large-scale datasets, together with a new quantitative metric-the CD index12-that characterizes how papers and patents change networks of citations in science and technology. We find that papers and patents are increasingly less likely to break with the past in ways that push science and technology in new directions. This pattern holds universally across fields and is robust across multiple different citation- and text-based metrics1,13-17. Subsequently, we link this decline in disruptiveness to a narrowing in the use of previous knowledge, allowing us to reconcile the patterns we observe with the 'shoulders of giants' view. We find that the observed declines are unlikely to be driven by changes in the quality of published science, citation practices or field-specific factors. Overall, our results suggest that slowing rates of disruption may reflect a fundamental shift in the nature of science and technology.

Remote collaboration fuses fewer breakthrough ideas.

Theories of innovation emphasize the role of social networks and teams as facilitators of breakthrough discoveries1-4. Around the world, scientists and inventors are more plentiful and interconnected today than ever before4. However, although there are more people making discoveries, and more ideas that can be reconfigured in new ways, research suggests that new ideas are getting harder to find5,6-contradicting recombinant growth theory7,8. Here we shed light on this apparent puzzle. Analysing 20 million research articles and 4 million patent applications from across the globe over the past half-century, we begin by documenting the rise of remote collaboration across cities, underlining the growing interconnectedness of scientists and inventors globally. We further show that across all fields, periods and team sizes, researchers in these remote teams are consistently less likely to make breakthrough discoveries relative to their on-site counterparts. Creating a dataset that allows us to explore the division of labour in knowledge production within teams and across space, we find that among distributed team members, collaboration centres on late-stage, technical tasks involving more codified knowledge. Yet they are less likely to join forces in conceptual tasks-such as conceiving new ideas and designing research-when knowledge is tacit9. We conclude that despite striking improvements in digital technology in recent years, remote teams are less likely to integrate the knowledge of their members to produce new, disruptive ideas.

Large teams develop and small teams disrupt science and technology.

One of the most universal trends in science and technology today is the growth of large teams in all areas, as solitary researchers and small teams diminish in prevalence1-3. Increases in team size have been attributed to the specialization of scientific activities3, improvements in communication technology4,5, or the complexity of modern problems that require interdisciplinary solutions6-8. This shift in team size raises the question of whether and how the character of the science and technology produced by large teams differs from that of small teams. Here we analyse more than 65 million papers, patents and software products that span the period 1954-2014, and demonstrate that across this period smaller teams have tended to disrupt science and technology with new ideas and opportunities, whereas larger teams have tended to develop existing ones. Work from larger teams builds on more-recent and popular developments, and attention to their work comes immediately. By contrast, contributions by smaller teams search more deeply into the past, are viewed as disruptive to science and technology and succeed further into the future-if at all. Observed differences between small and large teams are magnified for higher-impact work, with small teams known for disruptive work and large teams for developing work. Differences in topic and research design account for a small part of the relationship between team size and disruption; most of the effect occurs at the level of the individual, as people move between smaller and larger teams. These results demonstrate that both small and large teams are essential to a flourishing ecology of science and technology, and suggest that, to achieve this, science policies should aim to support a diversity of team sizes.

What patents tell us about drug repurposing for cancer: A landscape analysis.

Intellectual property documents (patents and their published applications) are not only collections of legal exclusivity claims but also repositories of scientific and technical information, even though they are not peer reviewed. We have identified and analyzed international disclosures concerning drug repurposing for cancer that were published under the Patent Convention Treaty during the past five years, and show this burgeoning field from an angle that is not routinely captured in review papers of the field. We find that patenting activity for cancer-related new uses for known compounds has been quite constant recently and has targeted mainly small molecule active ingredients that are currently marketed as drugs. Universities contributed most applications, closely followed by corporations. The strong representation of non-academic research institutes from the public and private sector and foundations was surprising and indicates that drug repurposing for cancer has transcended the classical corporate-academia dichotomy. Many of the identified patent documents report findings that are not reflected in the peer review literature (e.g., sumatriptan for mycosis fungoides) or appear there only later (e.g., ibudilast for glioblastoma). Synergistic combinations of several repurposed compounds were also identified, as were two documents related to the repurposing of vaccines. Our findings underscore the necessity for drug repurposers as well as for oncologists to investigate patent documents in addition to the usual peer review literature search to obtain a comprehensive perspective of the state of the art.

Contemporary Trends and End-Results of National Institutes of Health Grant Funding to Departments of Urology in the United States: A 10-year Analysis.

PURPOSE: We explored the patterns and distribution of National Institutes of Health grant funding for urological research in the United States. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The National Institutes of Health RePORTER database was queried for all grants awarded to urology departments between 2010 and 2019. Information regarding the value of the grant, funded institution, successful publication of the research, and the category of urological subspecialty were collected. Data on principal investigators were extracted from publicly available information. RESULTS: There were 509 grants awarded to Urology between 2010 and 2019 for a total value of $640,873,867, and a median per-project value of $675,484 (IQR 344,170-1,369,385). Over the study period, total funding decreased by 15.6% and was lower compared to other surgical subspecialties. Most grants were awarded by the National Cancer Institute and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (85%) to Western or North Central institutions (52.5%), and had principal investigators specialized in urologic oncology (56.4%), followed by general urologists (21.5%). Female principal investigators led 21.6% of Urology grants and were more likely PhD basic scientists than males (64.4% vs 38.2%, p=0.001). In total, 10,404 publications linked to the 509 grants were produced, of which 28.5% were published in journals with an impact factor ≥10. CONCLUSIONS: Urology is underrepresented in National Institutes of Health grant funding compared to other surgical fields. During the past decade there was a further decrease in the total budget of National Institutes of Health grants to Urology.

International Patent Survey of Products and Processes Concerning Homeopathy.

BACKGROUND: Homeopathy is a complementary medicine characterized by the use of diluted and potentized medicines. Innovations in this area are constantly being proposed in the relevant literature, such as scientific articles and patents. The objective of this study was to carry out a patent survey of homeopathic products and processes. METHODS: A free and international patent database, Espacenet, was used. The search was carried out using the keyword homeop*, with two approaches: (1) no date restrictions for the search and (2) a date limit for the publication years 2008 to 2018. The patents from the limited period were organized as depositor countries, ownerships and groups, including homeopathic formulations, equipment, packaging, production procedures, and analytical methods. RESULTS: Without date restriction, 601 patents were identified in the survey. Of these, 174 were related to homeopathy and published in the period 2008 to 2018. Technologies come mainly from the following countries: United States (55 patents), Russia (24), Germany (15), France (13), India (12), Ukraine (11), Brazil (6), and China (6). Among the ownerships, 69% of patent applications were by independent depositors, 23% by companies, 7.5% by universities, and 0.5% by company/university partnerships. New formulations represented 75.9% of technologies, whilst the others comprised 14.3% for equipment, 3.8% for drugs packaging, 3.8% for production procedures, and 2.2% for analytical methods. CONCLUSIONS: The present review helps visualize the homeopathy-related patents published in recent years, as well as the main countries and researchers investing in the field of homeopathy.

Open-Ended Technological Innovation.

We detect ongoing innovation in empirical data about human technological innovations. Ongoing technological innovation is a form of open-ended evolution, but it occurs in a nonbiological, cultural population that consists of actual technological innovations that exist in the real world. The change over time of this population of innovations seems to be quite open-ended. We take patented inventions as a proxy for technological innovations and mine public patent records for evidence of the ongoing emergence of technological innovations, and we compare two ways to detect it. One way detects the first instances of predefined patent pigeonholes, specifically the technology classes listed in the United States Patent Classification (USPC). The second way embeds patents in a high-dimensional semantic space and detects the emergence of new patent clusters. After analyzing hundreds of years of patent records, both methods detect the emergence of new kinds of technologies, but clusters are much better at detecting innovations that are unanticipated and undetected by USPC pigeonholes. Our clustering methods generalize to detect unanticipated innovations in other evolving populations that generate ongoing streams of digital data.

Drug development for cryptococcosis treatment: what can patents tell us?

BACKGROUND: Cryptococcosis is one of the most devastating fungal infections in humans. Despite the disease's clinical importance, current therapy is based on limited antifungals that are either toxic, inefficient, unavailable worldwide, or that quickly lead to resistance. OBJECTIVES: The goal of this study was to provide insight into the future of cryptococcosis treatment by describing the patent scenario in this field. METHODS: We identified and analysed patent documents revealing compounds with anti-cryptococcal activity supported by experimental evidence. FINDINGS: Patenting in this field has been historically low, with an overall tendency of increase since 2012. Most applications are single filings, suggesting that they do not encompass strategic inventions requiring broad protection. Research and development essentially took place in China and the United States, which also represent the main countries of protection. Both academic and corporate institutions contributed to patenting in this field. Universities are the leading actors, with the highest patent family counts. CONCLUSION: The low number of patents in this field indicates that efforts to mitigate the unmet needs for cryptococcosis treatment remain insufficient. Without investment to drive research and innovation, patients will likely continue to face inadequate assistance. Given the current scenario characterised by poor funding and low interest for technological development, drug repurposing may be the best alternative for cryptococcosis treatment.

Current Trends in Robotics in Nursing Patents-A Glimpse Into Emerging Innovations.

The purpose of this study was to describe the current evidence found through a patent search about robotics used to assist nurses in providing care. The authors used a modified seven-step strategy of searching patents according to the US Patent and Trademark Office guidelines. The nursing robotic search was performed in four databases including the US Patent and Trademark Office issued patent database, the US Patent and Trademark Office published patent application database, the European Patent Office database, and Relecura. Keywords reflecting the scope of the term "robot" were defined for the purposes of this specific search. This broad search yielded large numbers of patents germane to nursing care. These results were narrowed using keywords and the Cooperative Patent Classification schemes to determine relevance, ensure rigor, and capture the most relevant results. This review of patents suggests robots for nursing care are proliferating. The opportunity for robotics in nursing is emerging in industry. Although nursing will likely benefit from robotics, we must determine the appropriate place to include robots in nursing care delivery.

Diffusion, convergence and influence of pharmaceutical innovations: a comparative study of Chinese and U.S. patents.

BACKGROUND: Despite the significant impact of pharmaceutical innovations on healthcare, our understanding is still limited because previous studies explored only a few cases and largely came from a linear perspective. This study presents a detailed case of the Chinese and U.S. pharmaceutical patents and investigated advancements that the global pharmaceutical industry is experiencing. A network analysis approach was used to identify certain aspects regarding the diffusion of pharmaceutical innovations, including innovation attributes, adopter characteristics, and clustering. METHODS: Based on a patent database, network analysis and visualization, this study captured the structure of patent networks for the global pharmaceutical landscape in a large set of patents. A large volume of patent data, 15,422 patent filings citing Chinese pharmaceutical patents, 28,075 citing U.S. patents, and 6064 citing both Chinese and U.S. patents during 2014-2015, were retrieved from the world patent database, Derwent Innovation Index. The networks reveal many interesting features of technological innovation, convergence trends and diffusion patterns. RESULTS: Convergence innovations were identified, with the advantage and influence of U.S. patents shown in a variety of areas, and their Chinese counterparts were concentrated in traditional Chinese medicine. Early adopters of Chinese patents were mainly universities within the national sector, while early adopters of U.S. patents were academic institutions and large international pharmaceutical corporations of balanced quantity, contributing a higher degree of technology convergence. Technology convergence in the cancer-treatment sector is expected to have a high future development potential. CONCLUSION: Chinese and U.S. pharmaceutical innovations contributed differently to the growth and development of the global pharmaceutical industry. The findings of this study can provide rich knowledge about the influence, diffusion and convergence trends of Chinese and U.S. pharmaceutical innovations. In the pharmaceutical industry, the findings may provide implications for researchers, policy makers, health professionals, and the general public to help improve the overall health of society.

Changes in the Number of Continuation Patents on Drugs Approved by the FDA.

This study assesses the frequency of continuation patents on brand-name drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration from 2000 to 2015.