Abstract:

The paper aims to reveal the development trend of global maize molecular breeding and provide references to related practitioners in China in terms of scientific research or industrialization. The annual number of patents, life cycle of patent technology, major priority and publication country/region, major patentees, technology terms distribution in global maize molecular breeding were analyzed by using methods of bibliometric analysis, experts consultation and investigation research. To clarify typical enterprise’s technical history, the patent technology roadmap of Dupont was drawn based on the relationship among patent citations. The terms of patent titles and abstracts were calculated by emergency indicator calculation to explore emerging technology. The results show that the global maize molecular breeding is in a steady development stage. The largest number of important maize molecular breeding technologies comes from the United States, which is also the most valued technology market. The number of Chinese patents ranks the second in the world, but the patent quality and the awareness of technology layout overseas need to be improved. Multinational enterprises with complete technological system are the main force for technological innovation. Transgenic technology is the most widely used breeding technology at present. There are some emerging technologies in this field that deserve attention, such as doubled haploid, molecular marker-assisted selection, haploid induction, etc. It is suggested that China should further support maize molecular breeding and capture technology gaps sensitively to enhancing patent quality and technological competitiveness. At the same time, technical layout in the international market should be actively promoted.

Key words: maize, molecular breeding, patent, bibliometric analysis, patent road map, emerging technology prediction