Inventors are widely regarded as pivotal contributors to the generation of new technologies within R&D-performing companies. However, their role in the subsequent development and commercialization of their inventions remains underexplored. This paper investigates the impact of corporate inventors on downstream technology commercialization. Leveraging data on premature inventor deaths, we examine how inventors influence the likelihood of their inventions reaching the commercialization stage. Our analysis indicates that corporate inventors significantly enhance the process of bringing technologies to market. This effect is especially pronounced for (a) technologies closer to the scientific knowledge frontier and more distant from the product market, (b) technologies that are based on recent knowledge origins, and (c) technologies in domains with greater uncertainty regarding invention value, where implementation steps are less predictable. These findings highlight the importance of tacit knowledge accumulated by inventors during the knowledge generation phase, which plays a critical role in successfully commercializing their inventions.
