The economics and innovation management literature considers ‘innovation’
to be the commercial exploitation of an invention (Schilling,
2008). From this perspective, innovation concerns not only technical
but also economic issues (the innovation must bring value or, in economic
terms, ‘utility’ to the customers); without commercial exploitation, the diffusion
of the invention does not occur, and the invention ‘does not become innovation’.
In this sense, new product development must not only address
design problems that are related to technical/technological solutions but
also consider the value that the product provides to the customers (Porter,
1985) as well as the undesired side-effects the product creates for the users