Invention as a Combinatorial Process: Evidence from U.S. Patents

TL;DR

This paper analyzes U.S. patent data from 1790 to 2010 to quantitatively characterize invention as a combinatorial process, revealing invariant rates of technological exploration and exploitation despite slow growth in new technologies.

Contribution

It provides a formal, data-driven framework to understand invention as a combinatorial process, highlighting invariant dynamics and the vast potential of technological combinations.

Findings

Invariant rate of technological exploration and exploitation.

Slowdown in the creation of new technological building blocks.

Nearly infinite space of technological configurations from combinatorial innovation.

Abstract

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 utilize U.S. patent records dating from 1790 to 2010 to formally characterize the 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 U.S. Patent 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 -- which 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.