Temporal and spatial relations between patents and scientific journal articles: the case of nanotechnologies

Patent citations have been widely used in order to study intertechnologyand science-technology relations. The present work aims at:i) exploring time relations and distance between technical/innovative activities andscientific knowledge, using journal articles citations in patents as a proxy;ii) exploring the origin of the knowledge cited in patents.The study is performed on a field particularly relevant both on the scientific andtechnological side, that of nanosciences and nanotechnologies. In parallel a fieldless on the edge of research (polymers) is studied in order to compare results andshed better light on what is happening in nanotech. Studied items show a commonbehaviour and a higher rate of citations and a shorter time lag between citingpatents and cited articles for nanotechnologies rather than for polymers.Knowledge cited in patents shows in many cases a common origin with that ofciting documents. Conclusions on these behaviours are drawn.