Patent protection is the most clear-cut standard for innovation. This recognition gives the innovator the legal right to protect his invention. Each year, thousands of patent applications are submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark office for review and recognition. Its stamp of approval is the legal definition of an innovation or invention. This will continue to be an important part of the evaluation process.
Peer-reviewed journals are an even more authoritative source of innovation than the U.S. patent office. That is because colleagues have the opportunity to criticize and reject a scientists' findings. These scientists are often more qualified to accept or reject a finding than the patent office because it is their day-to-day specialty. In addition, they may have their own research to disprove the finding.
The social impact of an innovation is another important evaluation method. When a company or idea transforms society to the point that it becomes a verb such as "to Google" something, it clearly has become a social innovation. Similarly, Facebook has impacted society tremendously, with 600 million users by 2011. In fact, the company's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was named the "Time" Person of the Year in 2010. This recognition is a good evaluator of the overall impact it had on society.
Business innovation is about taking an existing product or service and repurposing it to create new experiences for the user. This is especially common in the consumer electronics segment. In the case of Apple, the company produced an innovative tablet computer called the iPad. The device had the slick Mac operating system and App store to add appeal for the user. The iPad helped to grow the industry's sales from less than a million units in 2009 to 21 million in 2010. The iPad constituted 90 percent of that market, according to IDC Research.