Big Data and Technology Evolution in the IoT Industry

The present study aims to better understand how and to what extent the different dimensions of Big Data can offer insights on technology evolution. By using a patent analytics perspective, in this paper, we introduce a novel approach based on co-words analysis using the abstracts of 170,279 European patents in the Internet of Things (IoT) field published from 2011 to 2019. In so doing, we map and visualize an industry’s technology structure, development, and trends, as well as disentangle the IoT technology conceptual structure, highlighting its core and boundary concepts. This is the first study that applies a decomposition framework to clarify the determinants of IoT inventions, showing relevant changes in the focus of IoT technology overtime. By shedding light on the evolutionary dynamics of the field, this research offers a valuable contribution to the technology innovation literature.