Patent Landscape on Hydrogen Technologies: Study of Hydrogen Technology Specialisation across European Regions

This master thesis is structured into multiple chapters. Initially, the Literature Review will focus on why it is important to study innovation and innovative activities, which are at the basis for the development of economic development, growth and prosperity; secondly it will explain, through the analysis of previous studies how and why it is appropriate to study innovation through the output, and more specifically using patents, considering both advantages and disadvantages of using this method; last it will report studies that have been conducted, especially in recent years on green patented technologies and more specifically hydrogen technologies, illustrating their findings. Following the review of past literature, a chapter will be dedicated to the representation of the hydrogen value chain: from the production to the storage, distribution, transformation, and end- uses of this extremely versatile and promising resource. As the analysis that have been conducted, an individual paragraph will also be dedicated to explaining what patents are and how the patenting procedure of an innovation is conducted. Subsequently, the following chapter, “Data & Methodologies” will explain how the research perimeter of hydrogen technologies has been defined, how the dataset has been identified and extracted from the adopted database. After the cleaning and refinement of the dataset, a series of statistics and analysis have been run to better understand the nature, characteristics, and peculiarities of hydrogen technologies. More specifically, the studies that will be presented in the “Descriptive statistics of the Dataset” chapter reveal interesting insights regarding the evolution in time, value-chain development, geographical distribution and evolution, complexity, collaborativity among innovators, top innovators, technological domain, and greenness/sustainability on hydrogen patented technologies. In the last part of the thesis, a study on hydrogen technology specialisation in European regions will be presented. Technological specialisation in the field of hydrogen will be assessed through patents granted at the European Patent Office (EPO). After describing the patent concentration in Europe on a regional level, two research studies will be developed. In the first, the presence of spatial autocorrelation of hydrogen technology specialisation will be investigated and possible clusters of specialisation will be analysed. In the second, statistical inference will be conducted through an econometric study to analyse which characteristics influence hydrogen technology specialisation in Europe. The thesis will close with conclusions, limitations and possible new developments of the study.