A comparison of the use and value of patents and trade marks in large and small firms* by Mark Rogers + , Christian Helmers ++ and Christine Greenhalgh † + Harris Manchester College, Oxford University ++ Wolfson College, Oxford University † St Peter’s College, Oxford University and all associated with the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre Seminar at Melbourne Institute for Applied Economic and Social Research * The research was supported by the UK IP Office and UK Trade and Investment.
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A comparison of the use and value of patents and trade marks in large and small firms *
A comparison of the use and value of patents and trade marks in large and small firms *. by Mark Rogers + , Christian Helmers ++ and Christine Greenhalgh † + Harris Manchester College, Oxford University ++ Wolfson College, Oxford University † St Peter’s College, Oxford University - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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A comparison of the use and value of patents and trade marks in large and small firms*
by Mark Rogers+, Christian Helmers++ and Christine Greenhalgh†
+Harris Manchester College, Oxford University++Wolfson College, Oxford University †St Peter’s College, Oxford University
and all associated with theOxford Intellectual Property Research Centre
Seminar at Melbourne Institute for AppliedEconomic and Social Research
* The research was supported by the UK IP Office and UK Trade and Investment.
Intellectual Property and firm size
• Well known that IP is widely used by large firms • Many studies of these large firms show benefits of
both patents and trade marks• One hypothesis concerning SMEs is that they may
do less innovation, so obtain less IP• SMEs may have a lower propensity to protect their
innovation, so again leads to less IP • Rather few studies have comprehensive data on IP
in SMEs• Notable exception is Jensen and Webster for
Australia – see Economic Record, March 2006
Some reasons for less IP in SMEs(full survey of factors in Jensen and Webster)
• SMEs do less innovation investment as face higher risk, e.g. bankruptcy, cannot diversify risk as in large firm with many product lines for R&D
• Liquidity constraints affect ability to undertake R&D investment with long pay-back period
• SME applies for less IP per innovation, as lacking in information about procedures and cannot afford an IP specialist in management team
• Cost of IP application high in relation to turnover and potential litigation costs also high, so see less potential return to IP
• All these factors would lead to lower IP intensity (IP relative to size of firm) in SME
Our objectives in this study
• Document for the first time for the UK the actual IP use by SMEs and compare this with larger firms and micro firms
• Explore the determinants of IP intensity (measured relative to assets) focusing on the role of firm size
• Analyse the comparative performance of IP active and inactive firms to see if IP is good for SMEs
• Performance to be investigated by analysis of firm survival rates – does IP help or hinder?
• Also explore firm asset growth in years following acquisition of new IP
• Small and medium enterprises (SMEs)– 2m Euros < total assets < 43 million Euros– 10 < employment < 250– Euro 10m < turnover < 50m Euros
• Subsidiaries of large UK firms are not classed as SMEs• Problem in that some SMEs have foreign parents of
unknown size – we can exclude later• Micro firms have assets < 2m or missing, but if owned
by an SME reclassified as an SME• Large firms have assets >43m Euros • MR calls this the Oxford Firm Level IP (OFLIP) data
Definitions
UK companies in Fame database (actively trading in 2005)
Trading
Companies
All companies
2,198,825
Large (> £28.7m total assets)
88,832
SMEs(£1.3m < assets < £28.7m)
159,399
Micro (assets <= £1.3m)
1,950,594
The FAME Dec 2006 data also contains 926,503 firms that are now classified as inactive. The FAME database only removes inactive firms after five years from dissolution so the record during 2001-2006 is complete.
Matching these firms IP acquisitions
• Matching of patents and trade marks registered in either (or both) the UK or in Europe
• Matching conducted by company names recorded in the IP application
• Also matched IP for firms that existed during 2001 to 2005, but listed as inactive by 2006
• Inactive includes live but not trading, in receivership, dissolved, and liquidated firms
• Total sample approx. 3m firms of which 2.1m live, but bulk of population is micro firms
All SMEs and IP active SMEs 2001-2005Year
AlltradingSMEs
IP active SMEs
% Foreign owned
IP active SMEs
2001 130, 082 3,123 2.41%
574
2002 138,243 3,365 2.43% 577
2003 148,215 3,330 2.25% 547
2004 158,221 3,325 2.10% 506
2005 159,399 3,547 2.23% 514
2001-2005 213,855 10,269 4.80% 1,604
For comparison, during 2001-2005, 5.4% of large firms and 0.8% of micro firms were IP active in one or more IP types
Benchmarking the matching outcome
(IP publications in 2003)
OfficialData
OFLIPData
(%)
UKIP – UK patents 5,708 4,084 71.5
UKIP – UK trade marks 18,071 12,484 69.1
OHIM – Comm. marks 6,301 4,478 71.1
EPO – patents 4,361 4,132 94.7
Not expecting 100% as official data is for UK residents: individual, corporate, university, or government agency
Numbers of IP assets by year and type
01
0,0
00
20,0
00
30,0
00
No. o
f P
ub
lica
tion
s
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
UK Patents EPOUK TM CTM
Numbers of patents by year and class of firm
01
,000
2,0
00
3,0
00
4,0
00
No. o
f P
ub
lica
tion
s
Large SME Micro
200
1
200
2
200
3
200
4
200
5
200
1
200
2
200
3
200
4
200
5
200
1
200
2
200
3
200
4
200
5
UK Patents (pub) EPO Patents (pub)
Numbers of trade marks by year and class of firm
02
,000
4,0
00
6,0
00
8,0
00
No. o
f tr
ade
mark
s
Large SME Micro
200
1
200
2
200
3
200
4
200
5
200
1
200
2
200
3
200
4
200
5
200
1
200
2
200
3
200
4
200
5
UK trade marks (pub) Community TM (reg)
The facts so far• UK has a large number of SMEs and even larger
number of micro firms• A small but significant proportion of both classes
were actively seeking patents and trade marks during 2001-05
• The absolute number of patents by SME plus micro firms stands comparison in scale with the total for all large firms over the period
• By 2005 the within-year total for SME + micro patents exceeded that for large firms
• The absolute number of trade mark applications by SME plus micro firms exceeded that of large firms in each year of the study
IP active SMEs and IP assets per firm (by sector 2001-2005)
Turnover available for 28% of SMEs. Cor(growA, growT)=0.44 [0.52 in Manu]
UK patent distribution not statistically different from non-IP SMEs, other IP types are different
Modelling firm growth
More intuitive and revealing to re-write
1ln ln
=1 growth random around trend (Gibrat)
1 growth falls with firm size (Galton)
t t ty y
1 1 1ln ln ( 1) lnt t t t ty y growth y x u Asset growth: mean=55%, median=1%,max=193,000%
Turnover growth: mean=75% , median=3.7%
IP active firms have similar distributions
…. an example of results
Growth of assets dependent variable, OLS, robust errorsExcludes values above 99th percentile (249%)DV = Growth in assets 2001 to 2004 All SMEs Age < 5 Age 5to10 Age>10
Dummy for UK trade marks (2001) 0.049 0.073 0.071 0.032(6.78)** (2.84)** (3.94)** (4.60)**
Dummy for Comm. trade marks (2001) 0.007 0.023 0.011 0.004(0.58) (0.57) (0.44) (0.30)
Dummy for UK patents (2001) -0.011 -0.047 -0.012 -0.006(0.92) (0.72) (0.37) (0.49)
plus many other variablesObservations 103877 16390 23738 62269R-squared 0.03 0.03 0.02 0.03
Growth summary• OLS regressions sensitive to sample• Robust regression and median least squares as checksMain results• SME UK trade marking associated with increased
growth (3 to 6% p.a.)No. with UKTM =1670 SMEs in 2001 (1.58% of sample)
• Some evidence of positive association with Community trade marks
• Patents mostly have little association with growth, sometimes negative– Of course, only looking at growth in next three years (and
patents published), so maybe growth long term– But, not encouraging for SME patent use (UK or EPO)
Conclusions about innovation and IP in SMEs
• Our evidence firmly refutes view that SMEs innovate less than larger firms (pro rata)
• (unless prepared to argue that large firms are innovating more, but have lower patent and trademark propensity!)
• Findings on IP intensity support the view that SMEs do perceive value of IP protection
• Traditional view that SMEs are so disadvantaged that they cannot use IP is firmly rejected
• Cannot yet positively establish level playing field in costs and returns compared with larger firms
Conclusions about IP and performance
• Exit probability of SMEs within three years of IP activity is reduced in case of UK trade marks
• Exit of older firms is reduced by Community trade marks
• Growth of assets and turnover in all SME firms are enhanced by UK trade marks
• Other types of IP use are not significant for exit or growth over this short period
• Seems likely that the returns to patents take longer given that we observe similarly high intensity of patents and trade marks in SMEs