Investment in software and computer services (+11.7%), automobiles and parts (8.9%), and technology hardware and equipment (8.8%) has increased rapidly. Other sectors with high R&D growth are industrial engineering (9.8%) and the health-care equipment and services sectors (8.3%). Experimentation in the form of R&D or inventive activity over several years is sometimes followed by a sudden and marked increase in innovative activity, which is typical of the development of successful new technologies (OECD, 2013i). Early developments generally occur in patent classes that are later abandoned in favour of new technological solutions in different patent classes (Figure 1.18).