Origins of Innovation in Complex Systems

Innovation takes place both in nature and technology. Either through symbiosis, tinkering or design, new functional features and artifacts are obtained. Such new entities often result from the combination of predefined building blocks, although a completely new solution can also emerge. On the other hand, the majority of technological and evolutionary changes take place gradually through an extensive combination and refinement of existing inventions. In this context, we are exploring these questions by studying the network of patent citations.  As it occurs with the fossil record, the record of patents through time provides us with the opportunity of seeing how new inventions emerge and how they relate to previous ones.