Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP13447
Authors: Reinhilde Veugelers; Michele Pezzoni; Fabiana Visentin
Abstract: Despite the high interest of scholars in identifying successful inventions, little attention has been devoted to investigate how (fast) the novel ideas embodied in original inventions are re-used in follow-on inventions. We overcome this limitation by empirically mapping and characterizing the trajectory of novel technologies’ re-use in follow-on inventions. Specifically, we consider the factors affecting the time needed for a novel technology to be legitimated as well as to reach its full technological impact. We analyze how these diffusion dynamics are affected by the antecedent characteristics of the novel technology. We characterize novel technologies as those that make new combinations with existing technological components and trace these new combinations in follow-on inventions. We find that novel technologies combining for the first time technological components which are similar and which are familiar to the inventors’ community require a short time to be legitimated but show a low technological impact. In contrast, combining for the first time technological components with a science-based nature generates technologies with a long legitimation time but also high technological impact.
Keywords: technological novelty; diffusion; combinatorial components; patent data
JEL Codes: O33
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| novel technologies combining similar technological components (O36) | shorter time to legitimation (C41) |
| novel technologies combining similar technological components (O36) | lower technological impact (Q55) |
| novel technologies combining science-based components (O36) | longer time to legitimation (C41) |
| novel technologies combining science-based components (O36) | higher technological impact (O33) |
| technologies resulting from familiar components (L63) | shorter time to legitimation (C41) |
| technologies resulting from familiar components (L63) | lower technological impact (Q55) |