Trademark or patent? The effects of market concentration, customer type and venture capital financing on start-ups' initial IP applications

We analyse the initial IP applications of 4,703 start-ups in the U.S., distinguishing between trademark and patent applications. Our empirical results show that start-ups are more likely to file for trademarks instead of patents when entering markets with a higher market concentration. Furthermore,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Industry and innovation 2017-05, Vol.24 (4), p.325-345
Main Authors: De Vries, Geertjan, Pennings, Enrico, Block, Joern H., Fisch, Christian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Empirical analysis
Financing
Intellectual property
market concentration
Markets
Patent applications
Startups
Strategy
Trademarks
Venture capital
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We analyse the initial IP applications of 4,703 start-ups in the U.S., distinguishing between trademark and patent applications. Our empirical results show that start-ups are more likely to file for trademarks instead of patents when entering markets with a higher market concentration. Furthermore, we find that start-ups that are primarily active in business-to-consumer markets instead of business-to-business markets are more likely to file trademarks. Finally, the involvement of a venture capitalist (VC) affects the initial IP application. VC-backed start-ups are more likely than other start-ups to file initial IP in the form of trademarks rather than patents. This paper contributes to research on the use of IP rights in start-ups and to the literature on new venture strategy.
ISSN:1366-2716
1469-8390
DOI:10.1080/13662716.2016.1231607