My dissertation studies innovation, technology failures and competition within the context of the U.S. medical device industry. The importance of innovation in establishing a sustainable competitive advantage is widely recognized in the management literature. However, the innovation decision-making process is complex and often involves multiple external stakeholders, including regulators, customers, and peer firms. Furthermore, innovation is frequently accompanied by uncertainty and risk of failure. My dissertation seeks to contribute additional insights to the existing innovation literature by addressing the following questions: How does product innovation create unintended competitive challenges for early-stage ventures in safeguarding their intellectual property assets? How do founders’ backgrounds influence ventures’ varying responses to product failures? How do firms interpret and leverage industry peers’ product failures to inform their own product innovation strategy?