Peter Drucker wrote an article "The Discipline of Innovation" in 1985 to reassure that innovations did not spring from thin air, but "a conscious, purposeful search for innovation opportunities, which are found only in a few situations. Four such areas of opportunity exist within a company or industry: unexpected occurences, incongruities, process needs, and industry and market changes. Three additional sources of opportunity exist outside a company in its social and intellectual environment, demographic changes, changes in perception, and new knowledge."

Peter Drucker was a management guru before management gurus became a dime a dozen. From what he said above - innovations are to be found when you keep looking with open-minded.

If you can't innovate, immitate! There are plenty of law suits - one of them was Wal-Mart vs Amazon  when W-M IT employees left to work at the newly found Amazon. The employees were allergedly took with them business process innovations. 

This day, US corporates protect themselves by making business processes intellectual property (IP), sure ...right .. and the battle of business process IP continues mostly in court...