How do new use environments influence a technology's knowledge trajectory? A patent citation network analysis of lithium-ion battery technology

It is important for policymakers and industry practitioners to understand the factors that influence the evolution of a technology's knowledge base, i.e., its knowledge trajectory. The literature on the evolution of technologies and their underlying knowledge bases suggests that technological innovation takes place in an incremental and cumulative manner along certain trajectories. We extend this literature by not only focusing on the influence of the design hierarchy on the evolution of knowledge, but also the influence of emergence of use environments. We focus on the case of lithium-ion battery (LIB) technology from 1970 to 2018. We use a dataset of 101,620 patent families to identify and analyze the LIB industry's core knowledge trajectory. Our results indicate that the emergence of new use environments (in particular, those that require different service characteristics as compared to older use environments) can serve as an important mechanism for increased knowledge generation at the level of the product architecture, increased product innovation, increased technological uncertainty, and increased participation of new actors in the core knowledge trajectory. We discuss implications for practitioners and policy makers interested in understanding factors that influence the relative knowledge positions of firms and nations in complex, multi-purpose technologies.