Small Businesses Are More Active as Inventors Than as Innovators in the Innovation Process

摘要

In this report, GAO analyzes a number of studies that examine sources of invention and innovation and presents conclusions drawn from these studies about the contributions of small businesses to the innovation process. GAO concludes that small businesses have been important contributors to the innovation process and that they have been more active in invention than in innovation (actually brining an invention to market). While GAO was not able to generalize from the existing evidence to specify the level of small businesses' future contributions, no evidence was found to suggest that they might be less important to invention and innovation in the future than they have been in the past.