Visual Analysis Of Patents For Traditional Chinese Medicine Health Food From Global Perspective Ⅱ

Abstract:

Objective Orbit database was used to visually analyze the research situation of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) health food in recent years. Methods From the perspective of global patents, this article analyzed the technical theme of TCM health food, focusing on the application countries or regions, time and distribution of main applicants related to health food of TCM since 2016, and conducted branch and cluster analysis of technologies.

Results On the whole, the application amount of TCM health products has been in a stable state of high application amount, and TCM health food is in a high-speed and stable development period of the patent life cycle. According to the technical distribution, the patent application countries/regions for TCM health food since 2016 are mainly China, followed by South Korea, the United States, India, the European Union and Japan. Among them, the development of TCM health food technology is the most stable, and China has been in an absolute advantage in this technology field since 2016. According to the technical composition, the focus of technology is pharmaceutical and food chemistry. Collective clustering shows that changing the nutritional properties of food, nutritional products, their preparation or processing is a hot cluster.

Conclusion Although there is a huge volume of patent applications for technologies related to TCM health food, effective patent protection has not yet been formed. The innovation subject needs more targeted layout of research and development to improve the innovation level.

Keywords: traditional Chinese medicine health food; Orbit database; patent analysis; patent protection; food chemistry

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Intellectual property protection of traditional Chinese medicine is an important means of innovation and development. Patents are an important carrier of intellectual property protection of traditional Chinese medicine. Patent information is an important open scientific and technological literature resource that can help researchers formulate substantive protection and development strategies and promote the development of my country's traditional Chinese medicine industry [1]. Traditional Chinese medicine health food is a type of food that has the common characteristics of general food. Its raw materials are mainly taken from traditional Chinese medicine and its combination. Through advanced production technology, the rich functional ingredients contained in it are brought into play to the extreme, so that it can regulate human functions and is suitable for special food for people with specific functional needs. The theory of the same origin of medicine and food has a long history of development in my country. There are contents related to traditional Chinese medicine diet therapy in classics such as "Huangdi Neijing" and "Qianjin Prescriptions". The "Suwen·Wuchang Zhengda Lun" states: "For highly toxic drugs, six out of ten should be removed; for common toxic drugs, seven out of ten should be removed; for mild toxic drugs, eight out of ten should be removed; for non-toxic drugs, nine out of ten should be removed. Grains, meat, fruits and vegetables should be eaten to nourish the body."

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Non-toxic drugs can be considered the earliest record of erasing the boundary between medicine and food. They can be understood as products with the same origin as medicine and food. Compared with toxic drugs, they can achieve the same therapeutic effect and are more suitable for long-term use[2]. This is also the historical origin of traditional Chinese medicine health food. With the improvement of people's living standards, people pay more and more attention to their physical health, and the concept of "preventive treatment" has gradually become a trend. According to statistics, most people in sub-health conditions such as "poor skin condition", "lack of qi and blood", "hair loss", "anxiety and depression", "insomnia" are willing to take medicated food, but "don't know the formula", "don't want to make it" and "don't know how to purchase medicinal materials"[3]. Therefore, the market demand for traditional Chinese medicine health products is increasing, and it has become an important part of the national health cause. As a result, the research and development of traditional Chinese medicine health products has gradually become of great research significance.

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In recent years, the research on TCM health products has been developing towards patent application and product marketing. Yang Shengxiang et al. [4] invented a TCM composition, health food and preparation method based on Brazilian ginseng for relieving dysmenorrhea, and applied for a patent; Huang Meiqun [5] invented a health food containing Chinese medicinal ingredients such as deer antler, Polygala tenuifolia and ginseng, and applied for a patent. Among the TCM health products currently registered in China, the most common are those with wolfberry as raw materials, with 1,697, followed by American ginseng, astragalus, ginseng and Poria cocos [6]. However, there are not many statistics and studies on the patent applications related to TCM health products in China, and there is no comprehensive analysis of the market prospects of TCM health products. Therefore, this paper conducts a technical theme analysis on TCM health products from the perspective of global patents, focusing on the country (region), time and main applicant distribution of TCM health food related patent applications since 2016, and conducts branch and cluster analysis on the technology, in order to provide reference for related enterprises and research institutes.

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1 Data and methods

1.1 Research objects

The patent data and charts are from the Orbit patent information retrieval and analysis database of Questel, France; the subject terms include Chinese medicine and food. Search strategy: Combine Chinese medicine and its extended elements, food and its extended elements, search in the full-text field, and further limit it by the international patent classification (IPC) number of the relevant subject; search method: subject term + IPC number, (Chinese medicine or Chinese herbal medicine or herbal medicine or herbal or traditional Chinese medicine or TCM or herbal medicine or herb*) AND (food or food or beverage or drink or edible or drinkable or oral or paste or tea or sugar or Food or Drink* or beverage* or Edible or Oral) AND (A23Lor A61K or A61P). The search period is from January 2016 to May 2023, and the data volume reaches 52,705 items. Data related to the topic are retained through manual reading and screening, and the data related to the topic are imported into the Orbit database, and its analysis module platform is used for statistical analysis and chart drawing.

1.2 Research Method

Questel, a French company, is a leading global intellectual property database service provider. Its core product, the Orbit Intellectual Property Database, is one of the world's earliest patent databases. The Orbit system contains the world's most comprehensive and up-to-date patent and design patent information.
This study uses Questel's Orbit patent information retrieval and analysis database to conduct a technical theme analysis of the relevant technologies of traditional Chinese medicine health food since 2016, combining time, region, legal status, applicants and technical classification elements in a variety of ways, and comprehensively analyzing and understanding the technical landscape of this field through status, trend and technical composition analysis methods [7-8].

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2 Results

2.1 Analysis of the overall trend of technology

This study first analyzes the overall development trend of TCM health food technology to determine the current development status of related technologies.
Since 2016, the number of patent applications related to TCM health food has generally shown a decreasing trend (Figure 1), which is consistent with the background of the drug regulatory authorities in China, the United States, Europe, Japan and other countries (regions) strengthening the control of traditional Chinese medicine since 2016, which has raised the threshold for technology research and development and put forward higher requirements on the innovation ability of applicants. However, the annual application volume of patents for this technology still reaches more than 3,000, and the subject technology is still in a state of rapid development.
This study comprehensively analyzes the legal protection status of patent technologies related to TCM health food to consider the degree of technological innovation. Among the patent applications for TCM health foods, 21.5% are in the process of patent application, 11.0% are authorized, and the number of patent applications in the two legal states accounts for less than 35%; 35.0% are abandoned, which exceeds the number of authorized and applied patents; 32.5% are revoked (Figure 2), which is basically consistent with the number of authorized and applied patents. Based on the above data analysis, although the technology of TCM health foods has developed rapidly, a large-scale technology cluster with intellectual property protection has not yet been formed, which is consistent with the overall low authorization rate of domestic patent applications for food composition-related technologies. At the same time, the rapid development of technology accelerates the replacement of technology. Patent holders should more reasonably protect intellectual property rights based on the trend of technological development, abandon old technologies in a timely manner, and stimulate innovation vitality. In addition, there are some technologies with low innovation levels that have not been granted patents.

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Fig. 1 Global patent applications for traditional Chinese medicine health food

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Fig. 2 Legal status of patents for traditional Chinese medicine health food

2.2 Distribution of Technology Sources

On the basis of establishing that the technology of traditional Chinese medicine health food is in a state of rapid development, the specific technology distribution is further comprehensively analyzed from the perspectives of country (region), time, applicant and legal status, and technical analysis is conducted from the technical level to explore the hot spots, blank spots and important applicants of technology distribution.

2.2.1 Distribution of Countries (Regions)

First of all, from the perspective of technology distribution area, the countries (regions) for patent applications for traditional Chinese medicine health food are mainly China, followed by South Korea, the United States, India, Europe and Japan (Figure 3).
Most of the raw materials come from natural plants and animals, some of which are medicinal and edible medicinal materials. As food, they have a wide application base in the world. China has a dietary tradition of food therapy and food supplementation. Therefore, health food has a long history of development in China and is well accepted. It is also the largest market for Chinese medicine health food in the world. Since 2016, the number of patent applications for Chinese medicine health food technology in China has reached 49,774; in addition, there is a certain degree of technical activity in other parts of Asia, Europe, and America. Among them, South Korea has applied for 1,399, the United States has applied for 1,218, India has applied for 861, Europe has applied for 856, and Japan has applied for 732. Among them, Japan and South Korea have always had the tradition of using medicinal materials as food. In addition, due to the migration of Asian populations overseas, the technology of Chinese medicine health food has also been brought to Europe and the United States. Therefore, when developing technology in this field, we should also focus on the technical trends of the above countries/regions.

2.2.2 Country (region)-time distribution

From the perspective of technology distribution time, among China, South Korea, the United States, India, Japan and Europe, where technology is relatively active, China's traditional Chinese medicine health food technology has developed most steadily, with annual patent applications exceeding 3,000 since 2016 (Figure 4); the number of patent applications in South Korea, the United States, Japan, and Europe fell slightly in 2021, and the number of patent applications in India reached a small peak in 2020. Since 2018, the annual application volume has remained at 100-200. This shows that the region with technological development advantages in this field has always been mainly concentrated in China, and the technological development in South Korea, the United States, Japan and Europe is temporarily in a certain state of contraction. India's technological development has always maintained a slow development; however, due to the relatively advantageous position of early technology in South Korea, its technology is still at a relatively high level.

2.2.3 Applicant-Country (Region)-Legal Status Distribution

From the perspective of innovation entities, the top 30 applicants are all Chinese applicants (Figures 5 and 6), indicating that China has been in an absolute dominant position in this technical field since 2016, and the main nature of the applicants is enterprises and scientific research institutions. From the legal status of the applicants' patent applications, it can be seen that the top 5 authorized patents are Jiangsu Kangyuan Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (42), Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine (36), Henan University of Chinese Medicine (27), Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine (24), and Shuguang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (24). The number of valid patents currently formed is relatively small, and most patent applications are in the application and invalid state, and the number of invalid applications is greater than the number of applications, indicating that although the applicants are highly active in this technical field, they have not yet effectively formed key technologies with independent intellectual property rights. However, due to the existence of some patents in the application, there is still some room for authorization.

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CN-China; KR-South Korea; WO-World Intellectual Property Organization; US-United States; EP-European Patent Office; IN-India; JP-Japan; CACanada; AU-Australia; BR-Brazil; Ru-Russia; TW-Taiwan province of China; MX-Mexico; IL-Israel; SG-Singapore; DE-Germany; ES-Spain; ZARepublic of South Africa; AR-Argentina; VN-Vietnam.

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Fig. 5 Applicant-country (region) distribution of patents for traditional Chinese medicine health food

2.2.4 Applicant-time distribution

For the above-mentioned innovative entities with a large proportion of applications, further analyze their technical activity status to determine the applicants of focus. Specifically, Guangxi University, Jiangsu Kangyuan Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Lunan Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd., Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Jiangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Shuguang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China Pharmaceutical University, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine Affiliated Hospital, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Guangdong Yifang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Jilin University and Nanjing University have continuously applied for patents since 2016 (Figure 7). They are traditional active applicants in this technical field, with relatively mature technology and high degree of innovation. Among them, Jiangsu Kangyuan Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine and Shuguang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine have been authorized 42, 36, 27, 24 and 24 patents respectively.

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