RECOGNISING AND EVALUATING DUAL-USE INVENTIONS USING PATENT DATA

Abstract

B a c k g r o u n d . The dual use of technologies has become a pressing issue in the field of innovation, particularly in the context of military and civilian applications. Historically, military innovations have demonstrated a significant impact on economic development and technological progress in civilian sectors. Specifically, technologies originally developed for defense purposes often find a second life in everyday domains such as medicine, transportation, and communication. The objective of this study was to assess the scope and characteristics of knowledge transfer between military and civilian sectors and to identify the key factors influencing the likelihood of dual use.

M e t h o d s . The study employed several methods, including patent data analysis, semantic search, and econometric modeling. The primary data source was the PATSTAT database, which contains global information on patents filed across various countries between 2012 and 2022. Patents classified as military were identified using three criteria: inclusion in military technology categories in the International Patent Classification (IPC), patents filed by defense sector applicants, and keyword analysis of patent titles and descriptions. The sample included 1,6 000 patents, which were analyzed for citations in civilian patents. Probit models were used to estimate the probability of dual use based on patent characteristics, and survival models were employed to analyze the time to the first civilian citation.

R e s u l t s . The analysis revealed that technologies with broader application areas, such as medical devices and electrical engineering, exhibit a high level of dual use (57.7 % and 65.2 %, respectively). In contrast, traditional military fields, such as weapons and ammunition, demonstrate significantly lower levels of integration into the civilian sector (25.4 %). Geographic analysis showed that patents from the United States have the highest share of dual use (64.5 %), whereas this figure for russia was only 5 %. The average time to the first military citation was 1,302 days, while the time to the first civilian citation was 1,316 days, indicating a delay in knowledge transfer to civilian domains. Dynamic analysis also showed that the share of dual use decreased over the study period, potentially due to the increasing specialization of military technologies.

C o n c l u s i o n s . It was established that military innovations with a broader technological scope have greater potential for dual use. Such innovations are more likely to be applied in the civilian sector, particularly in high-tech industries, whereas narrowly specialized military technologies exhibit limited knowledge transfer. Geographic analysis confirmed the importance of national innovation policies: countries with integrated innovation systems demonstrate higher knowledge transfer efficiency. These findings underscore the need to develop strategies aimed at increasing the adaptability of military technologies and expanding international collaboration to enhance dual use.