Patent Trend Mining for Internet of Things in Logistics

The philosophy of the internet of things (IoT) provides an ideal environment for the logistics industry, which seeks the seamless integration and management of physically scattered logistics assets (freight, facilities, equipment, etc.). The great attention to IoT in the field of logistics stimulates the development of relevant technologies, leading to a high rate of patent applications. Our research aims to trace patent trends in IoT for the field of logistics by utilizing patent information. We analyzed International Patent Classification (IPC) codes and abstracts of patent documents using text mining techniques. Our results indicate that technologies for the IoT are in the early stages of being applied to the logistics industry and are in the process of being integrated with cloud computing and big data technologies.