As the paradigm of open innovation continues to proliferate in both academia and practice especially for the last decade, many studies have attempted to investigate patterns of open innovation. However, empirical and quantitative approaches to monitoring the patterns of open innovation are less conducted because of the difficulty in data collection and the lack of effective methods. Also, it is difficult to identify the patterns of open innovation when there are many cases of open innovation in a wide range of technology areas. In this respect, this paper aims to quantitatively monitor the patterns of open innovation using the patent-based brokerage analysis in the case of mobile communications technology. Using patent citation information, the knowledge flow between technology fields and firms is identified, especially for structuring the open innovation network of 5G technology. Then, the patent-based brokerage analysis based on the open innovation network is conducted to extract brokerage patents that present the patterns of open innovation: inbound and outbound innovation. Furthermore, the brokerage firms are explored to recommend the partnerships in the open innovation network. According to the results, it is expected that “strategy for open innovation dynamics” is systematically formulated based on the brokerage patents and partners in various technology areas.

Introduction

During the past decade, many studies that focus on the characteristics of open innovation in innovation research areas have been undertaken. Along with the trends of these open innovation studies in the academia, open innovation has become one of the emerging issues in practice. Moreover, its concept, type, pattern, and effect have so far been substantially highlighted (Chesbrough, 2003). Introduced by Chesbrough in the 2000s, many practical and theoretical articles have been published, and case studies of successful open innovation cases have also been reported (Huizingh, 2011; Jeon et al., 2012; Mazzola et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2012). The collaboration with and within groups is facilitated to achieve a common mission and to help others perform their own goals. With this, open innovation is making a concerted effort to exploit the knowledge and solutions required for both inside and outside. Such types or patterns of open innovation are called the inbound and the outbound types of innovation (Chesbrough and Crowther, 2006). For both R&D and commercialization, many collaboration types of open innovation are proposed: technology acquisition, outsourcing, R&D partnership, joint-venture, and networking (Lee et al., 2010; Jeon et al., 2011a, 2011b; Suh and Kim, 2012). As particularly related to outbound innovation, focus has also been given on innovation studies on constructing partnerships.