article thumbnail

Filing for a Patent Versus Keeping Your Invention a Trade Secret

Harvard Business Review

Insiders know it as Merchandise 7X. In 1998, a group of horse ranchers suddenly set up a production facility and filed an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for a generic version of Premarin. This, of course, represented a serious threat to a hugely profitable product. Is the product regularly observed in public settings?

article thumbnail

How Software Is Helping Big Companies Dominate

Harvard Business Review

They’re more productive , more profitable , more innovative , and they pay better. ” For example, productivity has grown dramatically in the retail sector since 1990; inflation-adjusted sales per employee have grown by roughly 50%. Andrew Brookes/Getty Images. Throughout the global economy, big companies are getting bigger.