Frugal Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights: A Strategic Trade-off for Resource-Constrained Entrepreneurs

Abstract

Frugal innovation has become a powerful approach to developing affordable, functional, and scalable solutions under conditions of scarcity — whether financial, material, or techno- logical. It focuses on substantial cost reduction, concentration on core functionality, and optimised performance, making it especially viable in developing and emerging markets — and increasingly in saturated and highly competitive developed mar- kets. Nonetheless, innovators frequently face a paradox: strong intellectual property (IP) regimes designed to protect innovations can become obstacles to the very frugality that makes these innovations viable and desirable. Furthermore, conventional methods for developing innovations often produce incremental instead of radical innovations under scarcity conditions.

This paper merges perspectives from previously dis- parate streams — frugal innovation theory, systematic meth- ods for developing frugal innovations (such as the Objec- tive–Conflict–Resolution approach), and intellectual property strategies — to propose a framework that guides innovators in making informed choices about when and how to pursue IP in a frugal context. We show how this framework can help innovators resolve the tension between protecting their innovations and diffusing their benefits broadly. The result is a powerful approach for developing and commercializing frugal innovations under conditions of scarcity, while strategically employing IP regimes to maximize impact and competitiveness.