An Indigenous Innovation - The TD-SCDMA Mobile Technology Standard Case

This paper explores the processes of indigenous (global South) innovation, particularly of the “high-tech” and “radical” kind, which have spurred technological catch-up, using the example of a third-generation (3G) Chinese mobile communications technology standard. Three hypotheses were generated from this study: (a) modularity-in-design opens new windows of opportunity for technological catching-up; (b) the lack of essential intellectual property rights acts as a key inducement, or a factor-saving bias, that influences the rate and direction of indigenous innovation in the global South; and (c) the long tail of an old technology affects the take-off of a new indigenous innovation, essentially by shortening the technological distance to be covered