%A Shuqi Xu(徐舒琪), Manuel Sebastian Mariani, and Linyuan Lü(吕琳媛) %T Modeling the dynamics of firms' technological impact %0 Journal Article %D 2021 %J Chin. Phys. B %R 10.1088/1674-1056/ac364c %P 120517-120517 %V 30 %N 12 %U {https://cpb.iphy.ac.cn/CN/abstract/article_124181.shtml} %8 2021-11-15 %X Recent studies in complexity science have uncovered temporal regularities in the dynamics of impact along scientific and other creative careers, but they did not extend the obtained insights to firms. In this paper, we show that firms' technological impact patterns cannot be captured by the state-of-the-art dynamical models for the evolution of scientists' research impact, such as the Q model. Therefore, we propose a time-varying returns model which integrates the empirically-observed relation between patent order and technological impact into the Q model. The proposed model can reproduce the timing pattern of firms' highest-impact patents accurately. Our results shed light on modeling the differences behind the impact dynamics of researchers and firms.