Evolving co-classifications - measuring technology maturity over time with patents

The IPC and CPC are often used for patent analysis in technology foresight, for example to span a technology field. One important indicator is the co-classification. However, so far, the evolution of the co-classification over the years has been neglected in the research. In this work of progress, we argue, that the temporal transformation of co-classification networks provides insight on the maturity of a technology. Thus, we developed an approach focusing on the number of edges and isolated subnets in the so-called cumulative co-classification networks. To test the approach, we conducted a case study on the field of additive manufacturing.