A Comparison of Structural Position and Exploitative Innovation Based on a Patent Citation Network of the Top 100 Digital Companies

Knowledge drives business innovation. However, even if companies have the same knowledge element in the business ecosystem, innovation performance varies depending on the structural position of the technical knowledge network. This study investigated whether there is a difference in exploitative innovation according to the structural position of the AI technical knowledge network. We collected patents from the top 100 digital companies registered with the US Patent Office from 2015 to 2019 and classified the companies into knowledge producer-based brokers, knowledge absorber-based brokers, knowledge absorbers, and knowledge producers from the perspective of knowledge creation and flow. The analysis results are as follows. First, a few of the top 100 digital companies disseminate, absorb, and mediate knowledge, while the majority do not. Second, exploitative innovation is the largest, in the order of knowledge producer, knowledge absorber-based broker, knowledge absorber, and knowledge producer-based broker. Finally, patents for industrial intelligence occupy a large proportion, and knowledge producers are leading exploitative innovation. Therefore, latecomers need to expand their resources and capabilities by citing patents owned by leading companies and converge with existing industries into AI-based industries.