The main aim of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the relationship between technological innovation and international trade. A non-linear relationship between these two variables would indicate that the effect of improved technological innovation on trade could vary according to the technological achievement in countries. Hence, the form of heterogeneity we investigate here is whether a country’s level of technological innovation achievement (or ability) affects the relationship between technological innovation and trade. This effect is analysed separately, firstly for developed and developing countries to determine whether other differences in economic development also affect the innovation-trade relationship, and secondly for different sectors, in order to pursue the results pioneered by Fink et al. (2005) in a non-linear framework.