I was reading an article on innovation by some researchers at Santa Fe Institute, "Innovation novelty and impact". The article tries to make a case for innovation matching patent code combinations. This looks to me to be a case of not framing the question correctly. Almost everyone who seriously studies innovation accepts the following definition: innovation is invention commercialized. I saw this definition attributed to a professor at MIT, but many claim to have said it.
This definition of innovation is based in part on the concept that technology and artifacts are created to solve customer and societal problems. Therefore, inventions must succeed in the market to become innovations. (Patents really have nothing to do with innovation except in the antiquated notion that government "licensing" preserves the proprietary nature of the solution.) Innovations create value for customers and allow the business to decide how much value it can capture from the customers.
Bill Aulet from the MIT Entrepreneurship Center discusses innovation in this video.