Trademark Valuation and Patent Strategies

Because trademarks protect only names and symbols identifying a supplier's product in the marketplace, the appropriability effect of patenting over that underlying product affects trademark valuation. Relying on a novel dataset of maintenance and renewal decisions the paper shows that the patenting strategy combined with trademarks doubles the protection premium value of a typical trademark. Nevertheless, the enhanced valuation deriving from patenting is mitigated by the brand-identification purpose of the trademark and other related procedural aspects. More broadly, the paper contributes to the literature on the valuation of IP assets and the impact of policy changes on the value of IP protection