Related papers: Invention as a Combinatorial Process: Evidence fro…
We consider inventions as novel combinations of existing technological capabilities. Patent data allow us to explicitly identify such combinatorial processes in invention activities. Unconsidered in the previous research, not every new…
The development of inventions is theorized as a process of searching and recombining existing knowledge components. Previous studies under this theory have examined myriad characteristics of recombined knowledge and their performance…
Considering collaborative patent development, we provide micro-level evidence for innovation through exchanges of differentiated knowledge. Knowledge embodied in a patent is proxied by word pairs appearing in its abstract, while novelty is…
This paper outlines a framework for the study of innovation that treats discoveries as additions to evolving networks. As inventions enter they expand or limit the reach of the ideas they build on by influencing how successive discoveries…
Technological cumulativeness is considered one of the main mechanisms for technological progress, yet its exact meaning and dynamics often remain unclear. To develop a better understanding of this mechanism we approach a technology as a…
It has been suggested that innovations occur mainly by combination: the more inventions accumulate, the higher the probability that new inventions are obtained from previous designs. Additionally, it has been conjectured that the…
More than ever, technical inventions are the symbol of our society's advance. Patents guarantee their creators protection against infringement. For an invention being patentable, its novelty and inventiveness have to be assessed. Therefore,…
In order to create new products, inventors search and combine previous ideas. Few studies have examined the characteristics of search that lead to new products; most have focused on patent citations, which are often retrospective and may…
We envision future technologies through science fiction, strategic planning, or academic research. Yet, our expectations do not always match with what actually unfolds, much like navigating a story where some events align with expectations…
Combinatorial evolution - the creation of new things through the combination of existing things - can be a powerful way to evolve rather than design technical objects such as electronic circuits. Intriguingly, this seems to be an ongoing…
Despite our familiarity with specific technologies, the origin of new technologies remains mysterious. Are new technologies made from scratch, or are they built up recursively from new combinations of existing technologies? To answer this,…
This article examines the complex trade-offs inherent in the patent system, exploring whether patents truly incentivize innovation or inadvertently hinder progress. It traces the historical evolution of patent rights from their origins in…
The latest improvements in artificial intelligence (AI) raise new challenges for intellectual property laws, particularly concerning the inventorship issue in AI-assisted inventions - that is, those in which AI is used in the inventive…
Innovation is cumulative and interdependent: successful inventions build on prior knowledge within technological fields and may also affect success across related ones. Yet these dimensions are often studied separately in the innovation…
Combinatorial Exploration is a new domain-agnostic algorithmic framework to automatically and rigorously study the structure of combinatorial objects and derive their counting sequences and generating functions. We describe how it works and…
This article examines the proportion of technical knowledge that is eventually patented and discusses implications for innovation. Drawing from economic theory and information science, the study considers a continuum from raw data to…
This study offers a new perspective on the depth-versus-breadth debate in innovation strategy, by modeling inventive search within dynamic collective knowledge systems, and underscoring the importance of timing for technological impact.…
In an age of fast-paced technological change, patents have evolved into not only legal mechanisms of intellectual property, but also structured storage containers of knowledge full of metadata, categories, and formal innovation. This…
A growing literature has examined whether innovation is becoming less disruptive, spanning diverse domains and data sources and using a range of methodologies. This paper provides an inventory of 105 studies exploring this question. The…
Using the 138,751 patents filed in 2006 under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, co-classification analysis is pursued on the basis of three- and four-digit codes in the International Patent Classification (IPC, 8th edition). The…