Abstract
Dental implant and prosthetics is a growing industry that follows the increasing aged populations that incur a higher percentage of tooth loss [1]. The dental implant sector is one of the most technical oriented fields in dentistry with many new techniques, devices, and materials being invented and put to clinical trials. Most innovations and technologies tend to be protected by intellectual property rights (IPRs) through patents. Thus, this research identifies the life spans of dental implant (DI) key technologies using patent analysis. Key patents and their frequently appearing phrases are analyzed for the construction of the DI ontology. Afterward, the life spans of DI technical clusters are defined based on the ontology schema. This research demonstrates the feasibility of using text mining and data mining techniques to extract key phrases from a set of DI patents with different patent classifications (e.g., UPC, IPC) as the basis for building a domain-specific ontology. The case study of ontological sub-clustering for dental implants demonstrates life span mapping of the technology and the ability to use clusters to represent stages of development and maturity in specific technology life cycles. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.