Publications

March 2022
Article

Winner Takes All? Tech Clusters, Population Centers, and the Spatial Transformation of U.S. Invention

By: Brad Chattergoon and William R. Kerr

U.S. invention has become increasingly concentrated around major tech centers since the 1970s, with implications for how much cities across the country share in concomitant local benefits. Is invention becoming a winner-takes-all race? We explore the rising spatial... View Details

Keywords: Clusters; Invention; Agglomeration; Artificial Intelligence; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Applications and Software; Industry Clusters; AI and Machine Learning

29 Oct 2014
Research & Ideas

Inventing Products is Less Valuable Than Inventing Ideas

In a well-marked line from the movie The Social Network, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg turns to the Winklevoss twins, who are suing him for stealing their invention, and says: "If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology

2019
Working Paper

The Consequences of Invention Secrecy: Evidence from the USPTO Patent Secrecy Program in World War II

By: Daniel P. Gross

This paper studies the effects of the USPTO's patent secrecy program in World War II, under which over 11,000 U.S. patent applications were issued secrecy orders that halted examination and prohibited inventors from disclosing their inventions or filing in foreign... View Details

Keywords: Invention Secrecy; Invention Disclosure; Trade Secrecy; Secrecy Orders; Cummulative Innovation; Wold War 2; Patents; National Security; History; Innovation and Invention; Outcome or Result; Intellectual Property; Policy; Commercialization; United States

SSRN

April 2004
Article

A Network of Invention

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Networks

May 2020
Article

Inventor Gender and the Direction of Invention

By: Rembrand Koning, Sampsa Samila and John-Paul Ferguson

We study whether increasing the share of female inventors leads to more biomedical inventions that focus on the needs of women. After accounting for detailed disease-technology, disease-year, and technology-year fixed effects, we find that a 10 percentage point... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Gender; Patents

October 2010
Case

Cherie Blair: Inventing Herself

By: Boris Groysberg, Robin Abrahams and Lindsay Tanne

Cherie Blair was famous, or infamous, in the United Kingdom as first lady from 1997 to 2007. Her marriage to Tony Blair, however, was the result of her own groundbreaking career in law--a career she fought to keep during the 10 years of her husband's tenure as Prime... View Details

Keywords: Work-Life Balance; Success; Lawsuits and Litigation; Government Administration; United Kingdom

Educators

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30 Sep 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Breakthrough Inventions and Migrating Clusters of Innovation

Keywords: by William R. Kerr; Technology

Research Summary

Mobility, collaboration, science, and inventing breakthroughs

Professor Fleming's research focuses on how individuals, firms, and regions can increase their possibility of inventing breakthroughs. View Details

January 2010
Article

Breakthrough Inventions and Migrating Clusters of Innovation

By: William R. Kerr

We investigate the speed at which clusters of invention for a technology migrate spatially following breakthrough inventions. We identify breakthrough inventions as the top one percent of U.S. inventions for a technology during 1975-1984 in terms of subsequent... View Details

Keywords: History; Technological Innovation; Patents; Labor; Immigration; United States

2009
Working Paper

Breakthrough Inventions and Migrating Clusters of Innovation

By: William R. Kerr

We investigate the speed at which clusters of invention for a technology migrate spatially following breakthrough inventions. We identify breakthrough inventions as the top one percent of US inventions for a technology during 1975-1984 in terms of subsequent citations.... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Immigration; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Patents; Industry Clusters; United States

SSRN

November 17, 2009
Editorial

Inventing a Better Patent System

By: Robert C. Pozen

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Patents; System

18 Sep 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Female Inventors and Inventions

Keywords: by Rembrand Koning, Sampsa Samila, and John-Paul Ferguson; Health; Biotechnology; Medical Devices & Supplies

June 18, 2021
Article

Who Do We Invent for? Patents by Women Focus More on Women's Health, but Few Women Get to Invent

By: Rembrand Koning, Sampsa Samila and John-Paul Ferguson

Women engage in less commercial patenting and invention than do men, which may affect what is invented. Using text analysis of all U.S. biomedical patents filed from 1976 through 2010, we found that patents with all-female inventor teams are 35% more likely than... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Gender Bias; Health; Innovation and Invention; Research; Patents; Gender; Prejudice and Bias

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July 26, 2010
Article

Wanted: A New Approach to Inventiveness

By: Ranjay Gulati

Keywords: Innovation and Invention

June 2016 (Revised August 2019)
Case

Numenta: Inventing and (or) Commercializing AI

By: David B. Yoffie, Liz Kind and David Ben Shimol

In March 2016, Donna Dubinsky (co-founder and CEO) and Jeff Hawkins (co-founder) were struggling with a key question: Could Numenta be successful in both creating fundamental technology and building a commercial business? Located in Redwood City, CA, Numenta was... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Machine Intelligence; Machine Learning; Strategy; Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Information; Technological Innovation; Research; Research and Development; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Digital Platforms; Commercialization; AI and Machine Learning

Educators

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2021
Working Paper

Who Do We Invent for? Patents by Women Focus More on Women's Health, but Few Women Get to Invent

By: Rembrand Koning, Sampsa Samila and John-Paul Ferguson

Has the increase in female medical researchers led to more medical advances for women? In this paper, we investigate if the gender of inventors shapes their types of inventions. Using data on the universe of U.S. biomedical patents, we find that patents with women... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Biomedical Research; Innovation and Invention; Diversity; Gender; Research; Health; United States

09 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

The Benefits of “Not Invented Here”

The best ideas and innovations are probably not invented by your company. But learning to find and work with leading partners in R&D calls for a massive cultural change, beginning with getting past the "not View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

March 2019
Teaching Note

Numenta: Inventing and (or) Commercializing AI

By: David B. Yoffie

This teaching notes accompanies the Numenta case, HBS No. 716-469. The focus is how to scale a new artificial intelligence technology, how to build a platform and overcome chicken-or-the-egg problems, and how to utilize open source software and licensing. View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Strategy; Information Technology; Technological Innovation; Commercialization; AI and Machine Learning