Concept and creativity: Proof-of-concept demonstration and aviation innovation in the United States, 1894–1913

This article conceptualizes proof-of-concept demonstration as the public display of a functioning new technology and investigates its effect on technological progress and industry emergence within the context of aviation in the United States between 1894 and 1913. The first successful demonstration of powered flight marked a watershed moment in the development of aviation and provided a proof-of-concept event that would dramatically change the trajectory and locus of flight-focused innovation. Our historical case study of these dynamics indicates that there was a dramatic increase in the amount of aviation patenting following successful public demonstrations of the airplane. We find that the geographic locus of aviation innovation in the United States shifted starting in 1908, the year in which the Wright brothers first publicly demonstrated their early aircraft. After this event, aviation patenting increased most significantly in areas that were geographically near to the demonstration site and in areas with high pre-existing levels of innovative activity. We observe that inventors placed greater focus on new elements of airplanes related to the proof-of-concept design, and we also find an increase in patenting of alternative types of flying devices that were conceptually and technologically distinct from the demonstrated fixed-wing airplane. Ultimately, this work links micro- and macro-levels of analysis and perspectives to provide a comprehensive account of the creative processes that underpin technological advance, and it contributes to our understanding of the incubation stage of industry emergence around new technologies. • Proof-of-concept demonstration is conceptualized as a public display of a new technology • Aviation patenting increased after the 1908 proof-of-concept demonstration of the airplane • Aviation innovation increases were greater in areas with high pre-existing innovative activity • Demonstration of the airplane corresponded to greater innovation for alternative flying devices