Patents can provide insights regarding the state of the art of IoT (Internet of Things) innovation. To evaluate the current status of IoT innovation, patents regarding the key IoT applications (Smart Home, Connected Car and Smart Healthcare) are researched. To measure the level of IoT innovation, a system approach to the IoT patents is adopted. The disclosures of the IoT patent can be considered as a system that is consist of several subsystems: environmental context, IoT sensor, information, transfer mean and processing tool.

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IoT Innovation Insights from Patents
Patents can provide insights regarding the state of the art of IoT (Internet of Things) innovation. To evaluate the
current status of IoT innovation, patents regarding the key IoT applications (Smart Home, Connected Car and
Smart Healthcare) are researched. To measure the level of IoT innovation, a system approach to the IoT patents is
adopted. The disclosures of the IoT patent can be considered as a system that is consist of several subsystems:
environmental context, IoT sensor, information, transfer mean and processing tool.
1. Environmental context is the context of the surrounding object(s) sensed by the IoT sensor. Some examples are
water, electricity, lighting, room temperature, a person’s or vehicle’s location or movement, traffic congestion and
a person’s heart rate and blood pressure.
2. IoT sensor is a stand-alone or embedded device that can sense/recognize its surrounding environments
(including position/movement/identification) with networking capability. Some examples are RFID imbedded
items, sensor embedded home appliances, wearable healthcare devices and vehicle control system.
3. Information is the context data obtained by the IoT sensor for specific purpose. For example, the context room
temperature is measure to obtain the data for automatic room temperature control.

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4. Transfer mean is the networking/communicating medium/infrastructure that can interconnect sensing devices
and connect sensing devices to the internet. Some examples are 3G/4G/5G mobile networks, wireless connectivity
(WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, NFC etc.), internet/telephone connectivity and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-
infrastructure (V2I) connectivity.
5. Processing tool is the back-end or embedded IT systems/processors that can process the context information (e.g.
cloud computing/big data analytics) and provide the value propositions exploiting the information. Some examples
of the IoT value propositions are:
• Automation: Providing various automation services for the customers’ job to be done (e.g. order the out of
stock product automatically; mobile payment; self driving car)
• Care: Caring for customers (e.g. monitor customers’ body status and provide various health care services;
control customer’s home cooling and heating/lighting system for energy savings)
• Business Intelligence: Providing better working tools/environments (e.g. analyze customers’ shopping
behavior for proactive promotion/advertisement)
• Entertainment: Providing fun to customers (e.g. virtual reality games)

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The IoT patent system can include the system integration subsystem that integrate and manage the functionality of
each subsystem as a whole. Following figure illustrates the IoT Patent system.

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Each researched IoT patents’ disclosures are divided into the IoT patent subsystems, and then, measured the
current level of IoT innovation for each subsystem. The results are summarized in the following table. In the table,
the level of IoT innovation for each subsystem is measured as early, developing, and matured stage except the
system integration subsystem. The level of IoT innovation for the system integration subsystem is measured as low,
moderate and high integration stage.
Subsystem/Applications Context IoT Sensor Transfer mean Processing tool Integration
Smart Home developing developing developing developing low
Connected Car early developing early early low
Smart Healthcare developing developing developing early low
The level of IoT innovation shows that Smart Home is close to the infraction point for the mass market deployment
once the system integration reaches the moderate integration level. Smart Healthcare is also near the infraction
point. Connected Car, however, seems to be in the early stage of the IoT innovation.
Based on the IoT innovation analysis, future IoT innovation and patent portfolios development strategy can be
developed by exploiting the system approach to the IoT patents, system evolution principal (e.g. TRIZ) and
scenario planning methodology.

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