Groundbreaking research analyzing 3.1 million U.S. patents demonstrates that inventions in low-contrast, ambiguous categories consistently outperform clearly defined patents. Discover how blurred knowledge boundaries foster radical innovation and create substantially more economic value.
In the world of innovation and intellectual property, conventional wisdom often emphasizes clarity, precision, and well-defined boundaries. However, transformative research challenges this assumption, revealing that patents residing in fuzzy, overlapping categories actually catalyze more breakthrough inventions than their clearly defined counterparts. This paradigm-shifting insight comes from a comprehensive analysis of 3.1 million U.S. patents granted between 1975 and 2013, conducted by leading researchers in organizational behavior and management science.
The Research Foundation: Studying Patent Categories and Innovation