Effect of the duration of membership in the World Trade Organization on Trademark Applications

This article has examined the effect of the duration of the membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) on the submission of trademarks by countries' residents. The analysis has used an unbalanced sample of 124 countries (including developed and developing countries), and primarily the binominal regression approach, supplemented by the generalized method of moments estimator, utilized for robustness check. Results have shown that the effect of the duration of WTO membership on trademarks works through the channel of trade costs. This effect is positive for less developed economies and negative for relatively advanced economies. These findings reflect the fact that as countries spend more time as WTO members, they experience a higher submission of patents relatively to trademarks, notably if they enjoy an improvement in their real per capita income (and export complex products). Furthermore, countries that receive higher Aid for Trade flows (which help to reduce trade costs) experience yet a higher number of trademarks applications, but to a lesser extent than patents filings.