Geographically dispersed reservoirs of knowledge represent significant opportunities for multinational enterprises (MNEs), both in terms of feeding the firm's innovation process, as well as adapting technology to new markets. They face serious challenges in accomplishing these tasks, due to the well-known barriers associated with the transfer of knowledge out of its local context. We argue that ethnic inventors might play a role in alleviating these challenges, by acting as a bridge between their countries of origin (CoO) and the MNE headquarters. Using USPTO data on internationally connected patents granted to US-based MNEs operating in knowledge-intensive industries over the period 1975-2009, our empirical exercise shows that patents invo...