Discussion of Coates' commentary

Joseph Coates argues against the analysis presented in “A Possible Declining Trend for Worldwide Innovation” in a commentary published in Research-Technology Management. His arguments display a lack of understanding of this analysis, a lack of supporting data and an ignorance of the information contained in Bunch and Hellemans' reference work that forms the foundation for the analysis. A response is provided to these arguments with clarifications of the original analysis, as others may have the same misconceptions as Coates.