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. 2025 Jun 19:11:e2919.
doi: 10.7717/peerj-cs.2919. eCollection 2025.

Sporting a virtual future: exploring sports and virtual reality patents using deep learning-based analysis

Jea Woog Lee  1 , Sangmin Song  2 , JungMin Yun  2 , Doug Hyun Han  3 , YoungBin Kim  4
Affiliations

Sporting a virtual future: exploring sports and virtual reality patents using deep learning-based analysis

Jea Woog Lee et al. PeerJ Comput Sci. .

Abstract

We investigate the convergence of sports and emerging technologies from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with a focus on virtual reality (VR) applications. Using patent big data, we introduce SportsBERT, a bidirectional encoder representation from transformers (BERT)-based algorithm tailored for enhanced natural language processing in sports-related knowledge-based documents. Through topic modeling, we extract key themes and clusters from sports-related VR patents, providing insights into the knowledge structure and technological trends in VR applications for sports. Our analysis identifies key drivers of technological advancement, including spatial hardware, tactile human-computer interactions, aerobic exercise, rehabilitation, and swing sports. Additionally, we highlight challenges such as the high cost and usability limitations of current VR devices. This study presents the first deep learning-based topic modeling approach specialized for sports patents and offers a comprehensive roadmap for current developments and future trajectories in VR sports technologies.

Keywords: BERT; Deep learning; Natural language processing; Sports patent; Topic modeling; Virtual reality.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare there are no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Overall research flow.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Coherence score according to number of topics when using optimal LDA model.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Example of two-step review used to analyze visual information from VR technology applied to sports.
Figure 4
Figure 4. SportsBERT topic modeling clusters.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Document and topic maps activated for all nodes.
Figure 6
Figure 6. Document and topic maps related to sports, exercise, and physical activity.
Figure 7
Figure 7. Document and topic maps related to swinging sports.
Figure 8
Figure 8. Document and topic maps related to online environments.
Figure 9
Figure 9. Document and topic maps related to visual technologies.
Figure 10
Figure 10. Document and topic maps for independent topics.
Figure 11
Figure 11. Trends of studied topics over time.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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