Trademark or patent? The effects of market concentration, customer type and venture capital financing on start-ups’ initial IP applications

Geertjan De Vries, Enrico Pennings, Joern Block and Christian Fisch

Industry and Innovation, 2017, vol. 24, issue 4, 325-345

Abstract: We analyse the initial IP applications of 4,703 start-ups in the U.S., distinguishing between trademark and patent applications. Our empirical results show that start-ups are more likely to file for trademarks instead of patents when entering markets with a higher market concentration. Furthermore, we find that start-ups that are primarily active in business-to-consumer markets instead of business-to-business markets are more likely to file trademarks. Finally, the involvement of a venture capitalist (VC) affects the initial IP application. VC-backed start-ups are more likely than other start-ups to file initial IP in the form of trademarks rather than patents. This paper contributes to research on the use of IP rights in start-ups and to the literature on new venture strategy.

Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13662716.2016.1231607 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:indinn:v:24:y:2017:i:4:p:325-345

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CIAI20

DOI: 10.1080/13662716.2016.1231607

Access Statistics for this article

Industry and Innovation is currently edited by Associate Professor Mark Lorenzen

More articles in Industry and Innovation from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().