It is well known that not all innovations are patented, but the exact volume of innovative activities undertaken outside the coverage of patent protection and, relatedly, the actual propensity to patent an innovation in different contexts remain, to a major degree, a matter of speculation. This...

This paper examines the relationship between Schumpeterian patterns of innovation and the generation of breakthrough inventions. Our data source for breakthrough inventions is the “R&D 100 awards” competition organized each year by the magazine Research & Development. Since 1963, this...

We study how technological leadership affects persistence in product innovation. Relying upon a database of 1818 products marketed between 1990 and 1999 by 265 firms active in three markets of the Local Area Network (LAN) industry we first construct a measure of technological leadership and then...