In a study of a selected number of major 

 innovations,^" the interval between invention 

 and innovation appeared to decrease over time, 

 as suggested by the following gross historical 

 trends. 5'^ 



Average time between invention 

 and innovation 



Time period 



Years 



Early 20th century (1885-1919) 37 



Post-World War I (1920-1944) 24 



Post-World War II (1945-1964) 14 



It is generally advantageous for an industrial 

 firm to minimize the time between invention 

 (i.e., the first conception of an innovation) and its 

 introduction into the market. Competing firms 

 may introduce similar products earlier, giving 

 them a favored position in the market; the cost of 

 capital may increase; or a loss in sales and profits 

 may be experienced due to a lag in the introduc- 

 tion of innovations into the market. These and 

 other considerations usually encourage rapid 

 innovation in order to reduce risk and increase 

 profitability. 



Trends in the time between invention and 

 innovation were calculated from a set of 277 

 innovations^! associated with the three groups 

 of manufacturing industries which varied in 

 respect to R&D intensity. The invention- 

 innovation intervals, which ranged from less 

 than one year to 82 years, were determined for 

 each industry group and for all manufacturing 

 industries combined. The results are shown in 

 figure 4-19 in terms of the mean number of 

 years between invention and innovation for 

 three time periods between 1953 and 1973. 



These data suggest that the invention- 

 innovation interval was shorter in recent years 

 (7.2 years during the 1967-73 period) than in the 



■'" Frank Lynn, "An Investigation of the Rate of Develop- 

 ment and Diffusion of Technology in Our Modern Industrial 

 Society", Report of the National Commiiswn on Technology. 

 Automation, and Eiononuc Progress. 1966. 



5" For other studies of the invention-innovation interval, 

 see Edwin Mansfield, The Economics of Technological Change. 

 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968), and Interactions of Scienceamt 

 Technology in the Innopative Process: Some Case Studies. Battelle 

 Columbus Laboratories for the National Science Foundation, 

 March 1973. 



5' The 277 U.S. innovations are among those identified in 

 Indicators of International Trends in Technological Innovation. 

 Gellman Research Associates, 1975. 



Figure 4-19 



Mean time in years between invention 

 and innovation, by groups of 

 R&D-intensive Industries, 1953-73 



(Mean Time in Years) 

 16- 



■I All manufacturing Industries 

 14 _ t Group I 



Group II 

 ■■Group I 



1953.59 1960.66 



■ Insufficient number of innovations for delermininE mean 

 of Group III industries 



SOURCE Gellman Research Associates, Inc 



1967-73 



1950's (7.8 years), but generally somewhat 

 longer than in the early 1960's (6.9 years). '^ ^^ 

 Furthermore, the time between invention and 

 innovation appears to correlate with R&D 

 intensity. Industries with the largest fraction of 

 financial and human resources for R&D tend to 

 translate inventions into innovations more 

 quickly than industries which are less R&D- 

 intensive. In each of the three periods, the mean 

 invention-innovation interval for industries of 

 Group I was shorter than the interval for Group 

 II which, in turn, was shorter than that for 

 Group III industries. 



^^ It has been suggested that the actions of Federal 

 regulatory agencies may be responsible, in part, for the 

 lengthening of the invention-innovation interval in recent 

 years. 



-^-' These data differ from those presented for the U.S. in 

 the chapter, "International Indicators of Science and 

 Technology"; the invention-innovation intervals in that 

 chapter are based upon all industries rather than the smaller 

 set of selected manufacturing industries encompassed in this 

 section. 



105 



