Introduction
This article is derived from the results of a research work on technological trends of SDIs considering patentometric and bibliometric tools respectively, however for the purposes of this writing, only SDI trends will be addressed from patentometry , which among other things, is considered a powerful tool for the study of technological trends, since they allow to recognize the areas of greatest development (technological niches), to know the state of the art of technology, the organizations that lead the activities of I + D, the life cycle of technology, among others.
Organizations that are related to the field of spatial data have witnessed important changes in the way of generation, processing and storage, as well as the technological infrastructures that support such data. In this sense, technological advances in spatial data management point to the development of the so-called “Spatial Data Infrastructures” (IDE’s).
This article is derived from the results of a research work on technological trends of SDIs considering patentometric and bibliometric tools respectively, however for the purposes of this writing, only SDI trends will be addressed from patentometry , which among other things, is considered a powerful tool for the study of technological trends, since they allow to recognize the areas of greatest development (technological niches), to know the state of the art of technology, the organizations that lead the activities of I + D, the life cycle of technology, among others.
Spatial Data Infrastructure – IDE
The European Commission (INSPIRE, 2007) defines an SDI as the integration of a series of components, including: data, technology, institutions, community, policies and standards, who create a platform for interested parties, both users and producers of spatial data; access, share and use data efficiently and effectively, through communication protocols (internet).
For del Bosque et al (2012), SDIs can be seen as powerful telematic systems for the development of the geographic information society, in addition to being strategic tools in the formulation of a wide range of public policies, as that by having organized platforms for spatial information (roads, lighting, transportation, water and gas networks, among others), it would allow the public management plans of the competent bodies to be better carried out.
IDE’s have been evolving in an accelerated manner, every day it is more frequent that countries and organizations make use of it to manage information of geographic interest, benefiting from the advantages that access to geographic data offers them, through public domain web services , which allow improving the use of territorial resources and decision-making about them.
Methodology
A descriptive type of research was considered; documentary, with a non-experimental, transectional and bibliometric research design. The population was made up of 35 patents published from 2009 to 2019 in the patent offices of the United States, Europe and Asia. For information processing, applications such as VantagePoint and SPSS version 10 have been used; Similarly, for data collection, analysis matrices were used.
In addition, the model of Campbell, R. (1983) was considered to measure the levels of technological activity, related to the concentration of active firms; in order to declare the different phases of technological development or life cycle of the technology. The model is presented as follows. “See Table 1”.
Results
A total of 35 patents corresponding to the years (2009-2019) were documented, with the years 2017 and 2018 being the years in which there was the highest number of registrations, (61.71%) of the total patents studied. The results are shown in graph 1.
Source: Mass I Rubi and Boscán, 2020
Documents related to IDE’s were deposited more frequently in the following countries: China (17 documents), United States (10 documents), South Korea (5 documents), Taiwan (2 documents) and Finland (1 document). China and the United States are indisputably the leading countries with 77.14% of total registered patents, followed by South Korea (14.28%). Additionally, among Asian countries, in addition to China and South Korea; Taiwan registered a patent in 2017, as seen in graph 1.
Source: Mass I Rubi and Boscán, 2020
De acuerdo con los hallazgos encontrados en esta investigación, se evidencia que el campo con mayor desarrollo tecnológico es el de los servicios Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) con un total de 19 patentes. Estas patentes se corresponden a mejoras incrementales o adaptaciones hechas a las especificaciones de los servicios OGC, a fines de aumentar la eficiencia y eficacia en el acceso a la información geográfica y la interoperabilidad entre sistemas. Ver gráfico 2.
According to the findings found in this research, it is evident that the field with the greatest technological development is the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) services with a total of 19 patents. These patents correspond to incremental improvements or adaptations made to the specifications of OGC services, in order to increase the efficiency and effectiveness in accessing geographic information and interoperability between systems. See graph 2.
The second field that shows a significant number of patents (15) is that of Geographic Information Systems on the Web (Web GIS). It shows different applications for different topics, among which are, GIS Web for meteorology, mining, architecture, civil engineering, among others. It is worth highlighting in this field the adaptations and improvements to geographic services, web architecture and standardization of geographic data that show more efficient and interactive platforms, where the use is not limited to professionals in Geography, Geodesy and Geomatics, but to the community. usually.
Next, three areas that are novel in terms of IDE’s are shown, which are the fields of management of large volumes of geographic data, Spatial Big Data (2 patents) and Data Mining (2 patents); In this field, developments aim to improve the management, in terms of volume, variety and speed of structured and unstructured data, from different sources such as remote sensing, ubiquitous sensors, social networks, among others. Important developments are expected in this field, in the short and medium term, through the integration of information from non-traditional sources, such as non-relational databases.
Another field that is opening steadily is the collaborative contribution of spatial data through Voluntary Geographic Information (VGI) & Crowdsourcing (2 patents), which represent an unconventional way of generating or updating spatial data with the participation of the citizens who, in their own and free way, provide geographic information through the web for the use of the group.
Finally, other of the fields found in this research correspond to the Internet of Things (IoT) and the processing of spatio-temporal data with one (1) record respectively. In these fields there are evidence of information integration developments of different electronic devices, which have a wireless connection with servers that process information in real time and that instantly generate web maps under OGC standards.
Conclusions
In the first place, it has been possible to analyze the technological activity of the IDE’s from patents, where it is concluded that the highest technological activity according to the US, European and Asian patent offices, is recorded between the years 2017 and 2018, representing this a 65.71% of the total 35 patents assigned.
Aligned to the model of Campbell, R (1983), the phase in which the technology is found is emerging with incremental technological activity, an example of this is the low concentration of countries and entities that are developing patents in the sector. Growth is evident in the last two years studied. However, R&D institutes belonging to universities, Chinese, American and Korean companies continue to develop in this sector.
Within the number of countries that patent innovations related to IDE’s and that invest in R&D activities; China is the first of them, followed by the United States and South Korea. Being the NANJING POSTS & TELECOMMUNICATIONS University (China), the one that leads the technological activity in terms of registered patents. However, in Europe and the United States there are great developments in this topic that are not patented and that must be taken into account in the subject of trends.
Despite the fact that technology is in an emerging phase, an increase in technological activities related to SDIs is expected, driven mainly by the growing demand for spatial information in daily life. Also given the incursion of this technology in innovative areas, such as Spatial Big Data, Data Mining, IoT, VGI & crowdsourcing, so much development is expected in these areas in the near future. Therefore, it is recommended to carry out permanent technological surveillance activities in the aforementioned areas since it will be there where the greatest activities will be taking place in the near future.
