Revealing Technology Innovation, Competition and Cooperation of Self-Driving Vehicles From Patent Perspective

Self-driving vehicle (SDV) has become a new driving force in the automotive industry, but no scholars have yet to dig deep into the competitive technology intelligence in the SDV field. Therefore, this study analyzes technology, competition and cooperation from the perspective of global patents, aiming to provide a reference to governments, enterprises and research institutions to grasp the competition situation and timely find the new investment opportunities. In this study, the Derwent Innovation Index (DII) is selected as the data source, the Jaccard index instead of the International Patent Classification (IPC) co-occurrence frequency is used to reflect the technical correlation, Relative Technology Advantage (RTA) index and the International Business Potential (IBP) are used to represent the competition among enterprises, and multiple network indicators, including macro and micro, are used to measure cooperation. The results show that: 1. Vehicle control system is the most critical technology in SDV field; 2. Different types of companies show different competitive advantages. Auto manufacturing companies rely on their strong comprehensive strength to maintain their position, but component suppliers are most likely to become a powerful group to shake the existing industry order. 3. As far as global cooperation is concerned, the partnership led by core leaders is taking shape, but it is still in the early stage.