Inventions - Publications - Faculty & Research

2021
Working Paper

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: Invention; Innovation; Artificial Intelligence; Clusters; Agglomeration; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Applications and Software; Industry Clusters; United States

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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

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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

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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

24 Nov 2014
News

Inventing Products is Less Valuable Than Inventing Ideas

15 Apr 2025
News

Mothers of Invention

VC Backed Moms founders Nicole Wee (MBA 2018), Lisa Marrone (MBA 2017), and Amelia Lin (MBA 2016) Illustration by John Ritter Early in her first pregnancy, having just launched the venture she cofounded, Lisa Marrone (MBA 2017) wondered how she could take maternity... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Gillespie

22 Sep 2016
Video

An Invention that Controls Light

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

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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

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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

April 2004
Article

A Network of Invention

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Networks

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30 Sep 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Breakthrough Inventions and Migrating Clusters of Innovation

Keywords: by William R. Kerr; Technology

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

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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

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Awards

Lemelson-MIT Doctoral Fellowship for Invention and Innovation

By: Stefan H. Thomke

Awarded the 1993 Lemelson-MIT Doctoral Fellowship for Invention and Innovation. View Details

01 Dec 2001
News

BOOK: The Money of Invention

Invention is geared toward three key audiences. Entrepreneurs can use the book as a guide through the intricacies of seeking a capital investor and to understand that entrepreneurial success depends on many factors — money is just the... View Details

Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information; Finance; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services