Patent prospects and trends in post-harvest management technology of fresh agricultural products

To predict the best direction for post-harvest management technology of fresh agricultural products, the growth potential of patents was evaluated using 1,517 valid patents from 1998 to 2017 for four countries (Korea, China, Japan, and United States) and the European Union. A patent portfolio (PP) index was used to evaluate the technological growth of the collected patents. Patent increase (PI) and patent sharing (PS) indices were used to evaluate the emerging trends in technology. A technology cycle time (TCT) model based on the PI, PS, and market power (MP) indices was used to compare the growth potential of each category. The PP index indicated that post-harvest management technology is in a growth stage; both the PI and PS indices showed that storage technology has high development potential, whereas packaging technology has low development potential owing to a low rate of increase. A multi-layer TCT model predicted that post-harvest management technology has high growth potential because the PI was 168.8%, the ratio of PS was 36.6%, and the MP increased 111.3%. Our results indicate that post-harvest management technologies have high growth potential, although patent applications decreased in some countries early in the study period. This study is important to establish the future strategy for extending the exportation of fresh agricultural products in Korea.