IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/zewdip/14118.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Which firms use trademarks - and why? Representative firm-level evidence from Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Crass, Dirk

Abstract

Trademarking firms are more productive, generate higher profits, and have a better survival rate. Trademarking firms are in one word more successful, which might motivate non-trademarking firms to adopt a trademark strategy. But this seems not to be the case. The proportion of trademarking firms in the German business sector amounts to just 18%. This figure is quite low, given that nearly each firm has reputation to protect. But why has the vast majority of firms no registered trademarks? Using a representative sample of German firms, the present paper links certain firm characteristics to a firms' propensity to register trademarks. The empirical results point to circumstances under which trademarks are significantly more often used: this is the case where a large distance between a firm and its customers exists, a firm's product quality is difficult to assess, a firm's products are characterized by a limited (but not strong) substitutability, and where a firm is engaged in R&D and introduces innovative products. Trademarks are considerably less frequently used if none of this is the case.

Suggested Citation

  • Crass, Dirk, 2014. "Which firms use trademarks - and why? Representative firm-level evidence from Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-118, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:14118
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/106134/1/813202493.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Helmers & Mark Rogers, 2010. "Innovation and the Survival of New Firms in the UK," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 36(3), pages 227-248, May.
    2. Stuart J.H. Graham & Galen Hancock & Alan C. Marco & Amanda Fila Myers, 2013. "The USPTO Trademark Case Files Dataset: Descriptions, Lessons, and Insights," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 669-705, December.
    3. Eugenia Baroncelli & Carsten Fink & Beata Smarzynska Javorcik, 2005. "The Global Distribution of Trademarks: Some Stylised Facts," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(6), pages 765-782, June.
    4. Philipp Schautschick & Christine Greenhalgh, 2016. "Empirical studies of trade marks -- The existing economic literature," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 358-390, June.
    5. Christine Greenhalgh & Mark Rogers, 2012. "Trade Marks and Performance in Services and Manufacturing Firms: Evidence of Schumpeterian Competition through Innovation," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 45(1), pages 50-76, February.
    6. Landes, William M & Posner, Richard A, 1987. "Trademark Law: An Economic Perspective," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(2), pages 265-309, October.
    7. Bettina Peters, 2009. "Persistence of innovation: stylised facts and panel data evidence," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 226-243, April.
    8. Paul H. Jensen & Elizabeth Webster & Hielke Buddelmeyer, 2008. "Innovation, Technological Conditions and New Firm Survival," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 84(267), pages 434-448, December.
    9. Mendonca, Sandro & Pereira, Tiago Santos & Godinho, Manuel Mira, 2004. "Trademarks as an indicator of innovation and industrial change," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1385-1404, November.
    10. William Griffiths & Paul H. Jensen & Elizabeth Webster, 2011. "What Creates Abnormal Profits?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(3), pages 323-346, July.
    11. Derek Bosworth & Mark Rogers, 2001. "Market Value, R&D and Intellectual Property: An Empirical Analysis of Large Australian Firms," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 77(239), pages 323-337, December.
    12. Paul H. Jensen & Elizabeth Webster, 2009. "Another Look At The Relationship Between Innovation Proxies," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 252-269, September.
    13. Moore, Karl & Reid, Susan, 2008. "The Birth of Brand: 4000 Years of Branding History," MPRA Paper 10169, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Bronwyn H. Hall & Christian Helmers & Mark Rogers & Vania Sena, 2012. "The Choice between Formal and Informal Intellectual Property: A Literature Review," NBER Working Papers 17983, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Aschhoff, Birgit & Baier, Elisabeth & Crass, Dirk & Hud, Martin & Hünermund, Paul & Köhler, Christian & Peters, Bettina & Rammer, Christian & Schricke, Esther & Schubert, Torben & Schwiebacher, Franz, 2013. "Innovation in Germany - Results of the German CIS 2006 to 2010. Background report on the Innovation Surveys 2007, 2009 and 2011 of the Mannheim Innovation Panel," ZEW Dokumentationen 13-01, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    16. Sandner, Philipp G. & Block, Joern, 2011. "The market value of R&D, patents, and trademarks," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(7), pages 969-985, September.
    17. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    18. Richard Williams, 2012. "Using the margins command to estimate and interpret adjusted predictions and marginal effects," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 12(2), pages 308-331, June.
    19. Fred Gault (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of Innovation Indicators and Measurement," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14427, June.
    20. Christine Greenhalgh & Mark Longland, 2005. "Running to Stand Still? - The Value of R&D, Patents and Trade Marks in Innovating Manufacturing Firms," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 307-328.
    21. Giovanni B. Ramello, 2006. "What'S In A Sign ? Trademark Law And Economic Theory," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 547-565, September.
    22. Crass, Dirk & Peters, Bettina, 2014. "Intangible assets and firm-level productivity," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-120, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    23. Bosworth, Derek & Rogers, Mark, 2001. "Market Value, R&D and Intellectual Property: An Empirical Analysis of Large Australian Firms," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 77(239), pages 323-337, December.
    24. Bettina Peters & Christian Rammer, 2013. "Innovation panel surveys in Germany," Chapters, in: Fred Gault (ed.), Handbook of Innovation Indicators and Measurement, chapter 6, pages 135-177, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    25. Karl Moore & Susan Reid, 2008. "The birth of brand: 4000 years of branding," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(4), pages 419-432.
    26. Hielke Buddelmeyer & Paul H. Jensen & Elizabeth Webster, 2010. "Innovation and the determinants of company survival," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 62(2), pages 261-285, April.
    27. Graevenitz, Georg von, 2007. "Which Reputations Does a Brand Owner Need? Evidence from Trade Mark Opposition," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 215, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    28. Bagwell, Kyle, 2007. "The Economic Analysis of Advertising," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 28, pages 1701-1844, Elsevier.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bei, Xiaoshu, 2019. "Trademarks, specialized complementary assets, and the external sourcing of innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    2. Dudar, Olena & Voget, Johannes, 2016. "Corporate taxation and location of intangible assets: Patents vs. trademarks," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-015, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Crass, Dirk, 2014. "The impact of brand use on innovation performance: Empirical results for Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-119, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Crass, Dirk, 2020. "Which firms use trademarks? Firm-level evidence from Germany on the role of distance, product quality and innovation," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 730-755.
    2. Stephen Petrie & Mitchell Adams & Ben Mitra‐Kahn & Matthew Johnson & Russell Thomson & Paul Jensen & Alfons Palangkaraya & Elizabeth Webster, 2020. "TM‐Link: An Internationally Linked Trademark Database," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 53(2), pages 254-269, June.
    3. Philipp Schautschick & Christine Greenhalgh, 2016. "Empirical studies of trade marks -- The existing economic literature," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 358-390, June.
    4. Duygun, Meryem & Sena, Vania & Shaban, Mohamed, 2014. "Trademarking status and economic efficiency among commercial banks: Some evidence for the UK," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 506-514.
    5. Nasirov, Shukhrat, 2020. "Trademark value indicators: Evidence from the trademark protection lifecycle in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(4).
    6. Castaldi Carolina & Mafini Dosso, 2018. "From R&D to market: using trademarks to capture the market capability of top R&D investors," JRC Working Papers on Corporate R&D and Innovation 2018-01, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    7. Drivas, Kyriakos & Gounopoulos, Dimitrios & Konstantios, Dimitrios & Tsiritakis, Emmanuel, 2018. "Trademarks, Firm Longevity and IPO Underpricing," MPRA Paper 89430, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Crass, Dirk, 2014. "The impact of brand use on innovation performance: Empirical results for Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-119, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Block, Joern H. & De Vries, Geertjan & Schumann, Jan H. & Sandner, Philipp, 2014. "Trademarks and venture capital valuation," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 525-542.
    10. Long, Vicky, 2019. "IPRs and Appropriability in the Digital Era: Evidence from the Swedish Video (Computer) Games Industry," Ratio Working Papers 329, The Ratio Institute.
    11. Nemlioglu, Ilayda & Mallick, Sushanta K., 2020. "Do innovation-intensive firms mitigate their valuation uncertainty during bad times?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 913-940.
    12. Block, Jörn H. & Fisch, Christian O. & Hahn, Alexander & Sandner, Philipp G., 2015. "Why do SMEs file trademarks? Insights from firms in innovative industries," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1915-1930.
    13. Marco Grazzi & Chiara Piccardo & Cecilia Vergari, 2020. "Concordance and complementarity in IP instruments," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(7), pages 756-788, August.
    14. Crass, Dirk & Peters, Bettina, 2014. "Intangible assets and firm-level productivity," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-120, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    15. Carolina Castaldi & Sandro Mendonca, 2021. "Regions and trademarks. Research opportunities and policy insights from leveraging trademarks in regional innovation studies," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2138, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Dec 2021.
    16. Flikkema, Meindert & Castaldi, Carolina & de Man, Ard-Pieter & Seip, Marcel, 2019. "Trademarks’ relatedness to product and service innovation: A branding strategy approach," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(6), pages 1340-1353.
    17. Nikolas Zolas & Travis J. Lybbert & Prantik Bhattacharyya, 2013. "An ‘Algorithmic Links With Probabilities’ Concordance For Trademarks: For Disaggregated Analysis Of Trademark & Economic Data," Working Papers 13-49, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    18. Bernadette Power & Gavin C Reid, 2021. "The Impact of Intellectual Property Types on the Performance of Business Start-ups in the USA," Working Papers wp523, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    19. M. Grazzi & C. Piccardo & C. Vergari, 2019. "Concordance and complementarity in Intellectual Property instruments," Working Papers wp1127, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    20. Sandner, Philipp G. & Block, Joern, 2011. "The market value of R&D, patents, and trademarks," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(7), pages 969-985, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Intellectual Property Rights; Trademarks; Reputation; Innovation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:14118. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.