From resource comparative advantage competition to innovation factor advantage competition is a new trend of regional competition. The free flow of innovation elements with innovative talents, innovative technologies and R D funds as the main content brings new opportunities and challenges to regional economic development. With the deepening of the understanding of the law of innovation, the connotation of innovative elements is constantly improved. At present, the definition of innovation elements is divided from the perspective of elemental theory and system theory. The factor theory generally divides the innovation elements into talent elements, capital elements, platform elements, technical elements, social capital elements, systems and policy elements; System theory believes that the elements of innovation are mainly the direct elements of the innovation activities that produce scientific and technological achievements, including technology, capital, talents, and providing supporting conditions to indirectly promote the external environment of innovation activities, namely, indirect factors, including infrastructure and social environment,macro policies, etc. The article analyzes the difference and characteristics between innovation elements and traditional production factors, analyzes the mechanism of innovation element flow and summarizes the current mainstream gravity model and push-pull model, and analyzes the influencing factors affecting the flow of innovation factors, from domestic and the international perspective summarizes the flow of innovation factors. In the future, it is necessary to carry out in-depth research in three aspects: the spatial effect of stream data formed by the flow of innovation factors, the measurement and effects of technology transfer, and the efficiency of innovation element allocation.