SIGNALCapital Markets·Jun 25, 2026, 4:00 AMSignal75Medium term

What if ideas aren’t getting harder to find, after all?

Large companies may have just become better at hiding the fruits of their labour

Why this matters
Why now

The article questions a commonly held belief about innovation stagnation, suggesting alternative explanations due to increased corporate secrecy.

Why it’s important

This challenges a fundamental premise about economic growth and incentivizes deeper scrutiny into corporate R&D and intellectual property management.

What changes

The perceived rate of innovation might not be declining but rather becoming less transparent, shifting the focus from idea scarcity to information asymmetry.

Winners
  • · Large companies with strong IP
  • · Economies with robust corporate R&D
  • · Competitive intelligence firms
Losers
  • · Small startups relying on public knowledge spillovers
  • · Policymakers relying on open innovation models
  • · Researchers dependent on transparent R&D data
Second-order effects
Direct

Increased corporate secrecy regarding R&D outcomes.

Second

Potential for an underestimation of actual innovation rates in official economic metrics, leading to misinformed policy.

Third

Enhanced pressure on antitrust regulators to investigate IP hoarding and its impact on market competition and broader economic dynamism.

Editorial confidence: 85 / 100 · Structural impact: 55 / 100
Original report

This signal links to a primary source. Continuum Brief monitors and indexes it as part of the live intelligence stream — we do not republish source content.

Read at Financial Times — Technology
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