Learning by Selling and Invention: The Case of the Sewing Machine
研究以美国缝纫机为例，发现销售作为技术传播媒介促进了二次发明，销售扩张带动首次发明者专利增加，专利使用反馈信息提高了重复专利的可能性。
For techniques diffusing as commodities, sales form a critical medium of technological communication which facilitates secondary invention. While sales may also influence the incentives to invent, I argue that the technical learning associated with selling provides a fuller account of invention for the case of the sewing machine in the United States. A study of some 3,500 patents and forty-eight city directories shows that as sales expanded in extent and location, so did patenting by first-time inventors. Moreover, patent use generated a flow of information back to inventors which increased the likelihood and extent of repeat patenting. In these ways, sales sustained technological change as a cumulative process.