Before revision:  Results suggest the Mapper graph captures salient patterns in firms ' patenting histories, and our measures of their uniqueness (the type and length of "flares" ) are correlated with firms' financial performances in a statistically and economically significant manner. We then compare this approach with a widely used clustering methodby Jaffe (1989) to highlight additional findings .
After revision:  Results suggest the Mapper graph captures salient patterns in firms ' patenting histories, and our measures of their uniqueness (the type and length of "flares" ) are correlated with firms' financial performances in a statistically and economically significant , and continues to hold after we control for portfolio size and firm survivorship. Comparison with existing techniques suggests the method's usefulness for data visualization and exploratory empirical research more generally .