A Probe into Patentometrics in Digital Humanities

Digital humanities (DH) is an interdisciplinary field that is improving humanities research supported by computer, network, and multimedia technologies. The development of DH requires strong technological systems, mostly related to patents. We apply patentometrics to probe into the related patent issues in DH and discusses the development of patent technologies such as virtual reality, ontology, 3D modeling, text mining, and GIS that affect the research of DH. We find that the international research on DH is not closely related to patent technology through citation analysis, though it shares disciplinary characteristics. The fluctuations of patent applications such as virtual reality, ontology, 3D modeling, text mining, and GIS are consistent with the trends of DH research. We reveal that the application of a related technical patent could promote the research of DH.