Une entreprise peut-elle rattraper son retard technologique ? Quelques éléments de réponse en économie de l'innovation

The apparent technological leadership of a firm at a given moment in time often hides the fact that a market dominant position is not necessarily secured forever. To what extent can challengers or potential entrants catch up with technological leaders ? Examples illustrating the decline of some technological leaders can not constitute evidence of non-persistent leadership. The industrial reality, which is complex and diverse, suggests a wide variety of situations. In this paper, we explore both theoretical and empirical studies about the issue of technological catching up, according to two approaches. We first analyse the various dynamic models of patent races in which we can establish the conditions under which a lagging competitor maintains or not the possibility of catching up. We then explore using an alternative approach whether cooperation in R&D allows the laggards to catch up.