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From the beginning of the 1980s, many large firms had to face a veritable cultural revolution, the NIH, Not Invented Here. The model of innovation strictly integrated into the space of big business had died and had to open up to external resources. From then on, innovation processes relied more and more on social structures, market or non-market, in which the effects of geographical proximity could, under certain conditions, play a favorable role. Would this collective dimension of the source of innovations confer on them a predisposition to be governed as commons? In any case, this is the direction that many players have adopted, emphasizing the sharing of resources. However, the competitive nature of the economy and therefore of the behavior of firms most often leads to the eventual re-appropriation of innovations in the business space, supported by the strengthening of intellectual property protection regimeJEL Codes: H41, L17, O31, O34, O36