Proprietary technology is the most substantial advantage for a business: it makes your offering hard to replicate. You need an order of magnitude (10x) improvement to have a real monopolistic advantage:

• Incremental improvements offer no real improvement to the user and are hard to sell in a crowded market.
• Lab results don’t compensate for expenses and risks of a new product in the real world.
• People are used to exaggerated statements and 20% improvement is not enticing enough to overcome skepticism.

How to get a 10 improvement?

• Easiest way to create a >10x improvement is to create something completely new.
• Radically improve an existing solution (Amazon offered >10x books than every other bookstore)
• Superior integrated design (Windows and Nokia tablets vs Apple iPad)

References

Zero to One, Peter Thiel.