Drawing on the reputation literature and signaling theory, this article builds on work that looks at patents as reputation signals. We build a multi-industry database of patents that expire due to lack of maintenance fee payments and test for a relationship between these patents and the firm’s IPO date. We find a significant and positive relationship between the likelihood of patents expiring due to lack of maintenance fee payments and the time to IPO. We also find that patents associated with firms which are not venture capital backed, are more likely to expire. Our findings suggest that patents that are used for signaling intentions are more likely to be underutilized. Implications for research and policy are discussed.

THE FATE OF PATENTS: AN EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS OF PATENTS AS IPO SIGNALS OF REPUTATIONAL ADVANTAGE

MOHAMMADI, ALI
2013-01-01

Abstract

Drawing on the reputation literature and signaling theory, this article builds on work that looks at patents as reputation signals. We build a multi-industry database of patents that expire due to lack of maintenance fee payments and test for a relationship between these patents and the firm’s IPO date. We find a significant and positive relationship between the likelihood of patents expiring due to lack of maintenance fee payments and the time to IPO. We also find that patents associated with firms which are not venture capital backed, are more likely to expire. Our findings suggest that patents that are used for signaling intentions are more likely to be underutilized. Implications for research and policy are discussed.
2013
Sixth Annual Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)-Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Conference on Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship
Patents; reputation signal; innovation; IPO; intellectual property
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/752619
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