Defining Key Inventors: A Comparison of Fuel Cell and Nanotechnology Industries

This paper defines the notion of key inventors - those whose patenting is simultaneously highly productive and also widely cited. By implication, key inventors should be the leaders in any developing new field and we investigate the validity of the notion through an exploration of two emerging technological fields: fuel cell and nanotechnology. The nature of the two groups is compared to discuss the differences between the technological groups.

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