Lenders’ selection capabilities, patent quality, and the outcome of patent-backed loans

In this paper, we investigate the phenomenon of patent collateralization by empirically focusing on the factors that affect the outcome of the collateralization process. In particular, we want to examine to what extent patent quality, lenders’ characteristics, as well as lenders’ selection capabilities (i.e. in identifying high-quality patents) affect the likelihood of observing a security interest release. We identify the patents recorded in security agreements and their release from the USPTO Patent Assignment database. The final dataset is made up of a total of 8818 security interest agreement records, involving 133,110 patents pledged as collateral for debt between 2007 and 2010. We find evidence that a security interest is more likely to be released for patents with a higher technical merit and when the lenders are more experienced and are specialty finance companies. When considering other types of lenders (i.e. banks in particular) or less experienced lenders, the positive association between the security interest release and the technical merit of the pledged patent is lower. The evidence suggests that IP-backed loans represent an effective financial channel for those firms that control valuable intangible assets and that experience and specialization allow lenders to develop better selection capabilities.