Analysis of Autonomous Vehicles Patent Trends between Korea and Overseas Using BERTopic

Autonomous vehicles refer to vehicles that can perceive and assess their surrounding environment independently, providing drivers with enhanced safety and convenience. The related industrial ecosystem is rapidly transforming, and countries around the world are making various efforts to secure technological leadership. In this context, understanding technological trends through information exchange and analysis is essential, but it often requires specialized expertise, substantial costs, and significant time. This study aims to analyze technological trends in the autonomous driving domain by applying topic modeling techniques to readily available patent data. The dataset is obtained from Korea intellectual property rights information service(KIPRIS), and included the Korea and Overseas(USA, Europe, Japan, PCT) patents from 2000 to 2023. BERTopic was used to identify 27 topics for each patent set. Regression and residual analyses were conducted to derive the top 5 'hot topics' for Korea and Overseas patents, respectively. The comparison of these results provides insights into the technological trends in Korea and abroad. The validity of the topic modeling findings is further supported by referencing a patent trend analysis report published by the Korea government. The proposed research method is expected to enable organizations, such as companies, to easily obtain information on patent trends in specific domains, facilitating their research, development, and investment activities.