The digital transformation can serve as a window of opportunity for those late-comers who are equipped with the capability to create complementary assets for grabbing new opportunities of technological leapfrogging as a way of catch-up while penalising the forerunner. In this context, we want to answer the following research question. Is there any difference in open innovation effect on the firm according to the changing of belonging sectorial innovation system from catch-up to post-catch-up? We statistically analysed the moderating effects of open innovation between catching-up, and the performance with the patents which were registered in United States Patent and Trademark Office, which were applied from China in telecommunication, from South Korea in Semiconductors, and from Japan in biotechnology on 1995–1999, and 2005–2009. We found three results from this study: first, from this research, as the signal of post catching-up, open innovation effects on the performance of firm, and the moderating effects of open innovation between catching-up, and the performance of the firm were found; second, the appearance of new dominant design after post catching-up was explained through the powerful open innovation and third, open innovation could be a useful new strategy for firms in the post catching-up to use.