Vive la révolution! The Fourth Industrial Révolution, that is …

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is a phrase that has been bandied about for the past several years. It suggests that we are on the verge of fundamental changes in the way we produce the goods that make life worth living.

But what is the Fourth Industrial Revolution exactly? And how do we identify the technologies that will make it happen?

Here are two sources that can help us start down that long and winding road.

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Identification of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies using PATSTAT data
Menéndez de Medina, M., Nomaler, Ö., & Verspagen, B. (2023). Identification of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies using PATSTAT data. UNU-MERIT. UNU-MERIT Working Papers No. 023 https://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/wppdf/2023/wp2023-023.pdf
Published: 02/06/2023
Maastricht Economic and social Research institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT)
email: info@merit.unu.edu | website: http://www.merit.unu.edu
Abstract
This document provides a methodological procedure to identify the Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies using patent data. Attempts to distinguish these technologies have frequently relied on the European Patent Office (2017, 2020a) methods or have mainly leaned on technical codes and keyword classifications. Frequently, these studies have the limitation of collecting technologies arbitrarily and without a deep justification. Only the latest report from the European Patent Office (EPO, 2020b) attempts to detail the procedure to recognize the Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies. However, it does not offer the possibility of being replicated by scholars outside the organization. This article delivers a procedure to collect Fourth Industrial Revolution patents relying on key concepts from a detailed literature review - focused on whether they make up a new revolution and its conceptualization over timeand the EPO (2020b) report identification method. Subsequently, the evolution of these technologies and the principal trends are exposed. Finally, the search queries and the list of identified patents are available (in the Appendix) to replicate or adapt for other academic purposes.
“4IR technologies are understood in this paper as co-evolving “technological systems” that combine innovations in the fields of digital data transmission, smart connected devices, computing, communication and connectivity technologies, the scope of which goes beyond the manufacturing sector and includes a broad variety of technological domains such as agriculture, health, home, infrastructure and services.”
A recent study of Confraria et al. (2021) is not directly focused on the identification of specific 4IR technologies but on the identification of emerging technologies.
https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/en/publications/identification-of-fourth-industrial-revolution-technologies-using

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Patents and the Fourth Industrial Revolution: The global technology trends enabling the data-driven economy (EPO)
This study explains the trends in a variety of digital technologies like faster wireless internet, smart sensors, “big data” and artificial intelligence. Taken together these are transforming healthcare, transport, agriculture and many more sectors – they account for over 10% of all global innovation.
https://www.epo.org/service-support/publications.html?pubid=222#tab3
https://www.epo.org/news-events/in-focus/ict/fourth-industrial-revolution.html
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Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Americas (https://americas.aramco.com/ ), Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

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