This paper investigates the Augmented Reality (AR) technology with a novel approach based on patent research. We searched the USPTO for AR-related granted patents in the period 1993–2018, we selected and manually browse a total of 2,373, we classified them in five key technological classes i.e., display device, tracking, user interaction, application, and system, and we finally analyzed the results. The main contribution of this paper is the investigation of the technological trends, with outcomes that can be useful for researchers and developers for technical steering, but also for policymakers, managers and entrepreneurs for technology scouting and forecasting. Our study found that AR technological development has especially increased in the last decade. In particular, we evidenced a remarkable steady of 82 % annual growth rate of the number of granted patents after 2012. From geographical distribution, we found that North America is the leader (68 %); Asia (18 %) and Europe (13 %) are lagging behind despite dedicated Industry 4.0 policies actuated by the governments. Another nontrivial result is the incoherency between the owners of a high quantity of patents and those highly impacting. In fact, only Microsoft Corporation and Amazon Technologies are at the same time in the top 10 of the most patent-intensive organizations and the top 10 of highly impacting organizations. Moreover, the majority of the patents are owned by companies, albeit some of the highly impacting ones come from universities or research centers. These findings provide theoretical, managerial, and policy implications for future research activities in the AR domain.

本文基于专利研究，以一种新颖的方法研究了增强现实（AR）技术。我们在USPTO上搜索了1993-2018年间与AR相关的已获专利，我们选择并手动浏览了2,373项，将它们分为五个关键技术类别，即显示设备，跟踪，用户交互，应用程序和系统，最后我们分析了结果。本文的主要贡献是对技术趋势的调查，其结果可能对研究人员和开发人员进行技术指导，也对政策制定者，经理和企业家进行技术搜寻和预测有用。我们的研究发现，在过去十年中，AR技术的发展尤其迅速。尤其是，我们发现，自2012年以来，授权专利数量的年增长率达到了惊人的82％。从地理分布来看，我们发现北美是领导者（68％）；尽管政府实施了专门的工业4.0政策，但亚洲（18％）和欧洲（13％）仍然落后。另一个不平凡的结果是大量专利的拥有者与影响力很大的专利拥有者之间的不连贯性。实际上，只有Microsoft Corporation和Amazon Technologies同时处于专利密集度最高的组织的前10名和影响力最大的组织的前10名。此外，大多数专利归公司所有，尽管其中一些影响最大的专利来自大学或研究中心。这些发现提供了理论，管理，