How fast is a novel technology going to be a hit? Antecedents predicting follow-on inventions

Despite the high interest of scholars in identifying successful inventions, little attention has been devoted to investigate how the novel ideas embodied in original inventions are re-used in follow-on inventions. We overcome this limitation by empirically mapping and characterizing the trajectory of novel technologies’ re-use in follow-on inventions. Specifically, we consider the factors affecting the time needed for a novel technology to be...