Smart wearable technologies: state of the art and evolution over time through patent analysis and clustering

The successful introduction and application of smart wearable technologies (SWTs) will allow the production of new generations of innovative and high value-added products. To this aim, we have built a unique database of 1313 patents included in the Thomson Innovation database, which were registered between 2001 and 2015 in the SWTs domain. This study shows the development trends in SWTs both in general and in different products classes, identifies leading countries and companies in different technological classes, and recognises basic patents within each year. Further, cluster analysis is used to identify the most relevant technological clusters and their evolution over time. This study offers a complete overview of the state of the art and of the evolution of SWTs over time, so providing important insights to researchers and managers who, based on this study results, will be able to make more informed decisions on research directions and technology strategies.