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Invention as a comb...
Invention as a combinatorial process : Evidence from US patents
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- Youn, Hyejin (author)
- Institute for New Economic Thinking, Oxford Martin School, Oxford, United Kingdom
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- Strumsky, Deborah (author)
- William States Lee College of Engineering, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, United States
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- Bettencourt, Luis M. A. (author)
- Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, United States
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- Lobo, José (author)
- School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States
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(creator_code:org_t)
- 2015-05-06
- 2015
- English.
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In: Journal of the Royal Society Interface. - : Royal Society of London. - 1742-5689 .- 1742-5662. ; 12:106
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Abstract
Subject headings
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- Invention has been commonly conceptualized as a search over a space of combinatorial possibilities. Despite the existence of a rich literature, spanning a variety of disciplines, elaborating on the recombinant nature of invention, we lack a formal and quantitative characterization of the combinatorial process underpinning inventive activity. Here, we use US patent records dating from 1790 to 2010 to formally characterize invention as a combinatorial process. To do this, we treat patented inventions as carriers of technologies and avail ourselves of the elaborate system of technology codes used by the United States Patent and Trademark Office to classify the technologies responsible for an invention's novelty. We find that the combinatorial inventive process exhibits an invariant rate of 'exploitation' (refinements of existing combinations of technologies) and 'exploration' (the development of new technological combinations). This combinatorial dynamic contrasts sharply with the creation of new technological capabilities - the building blocks to be combined - that has significantly slowed down.We also find that, notwithstanding the very reduced rate at which new technologies are introduced, the generation of novel technological combinations engenders a practically infinite space of technological configurations.
Subject headings
- SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)
- SOCIAL SCIENCES -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)
Keyword
- Complex system
- Technological change
- Technological evolution
- Biophysics
- Biotechnology
- Large scale systems
- Inventive process
- Patented invention
- Quantitative characterization
- Technological capability
- Technological combination
- United States Patent and Trademark Office
- Patents and inventions
- Article
- evolution
- human
- institutionalization
- invention
- medical technology
- natural selection
- patent
- time series analysis
- United States
- biomedical technology assessment
- classification
- computer simulation
- nomenclature
- procedures
- statistical analysis
- statistical model
- statistics and numerical data
- technology
- trends
- Data Interpretation
- Statistical
- Models
- Statistical
- Patents as Topic
- Technology Assessment
- Biomedical
- Terminology as Topic
Publication and Content Type
- ref (subject category)
- art (subject category)
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