Trade Mark Cluttering: An Exploratory Report Commissioned by UKIPO

This report explores the problem of “cluttering” of trade mark registers. The report consists of two parts: the first presents a conceptual discussion of “cluttering” of trade mark registers. The second part provides an exploratory empirical analysis of trade mark applications at the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) and the European trade mark office (OHIM). This part contains results of a descriptive and an econometric analysis. According to our definition, cluttering arises where firms hold trade marks that are overly broad or unused raising search costs for later applicants. The report distinguishes between three mechanisms that can lead to cluttering. It also considers a series of mechanisms that work against cluttering. This discussion is based on a review of the previous literature. The tentative empirical evidence provided in the second part of the report suggests that trade marks are more frequently registered in several classes at the same time and also that firms in pharmaceuticals increasingly resort to multiple simultaneous applications to ensure that they will register at least one trade mark. There is also some evidence that firms seek to avoid mechanisms such as relative grounds examination which can prevent cluttering. Finally, we report direct survey-based evidence that applicants perceive cluttering to be a problem in specific fields and countries. However, our exploratory analysis does not provide strong evidence that cluttering has already become a systemic problem for the trade mark systems that is comparable to the effect of patent thickets for patent systems

Trade Mark Cluttering: An Exploratory Report

This report explores the problem of “cluttering” of trade mark registers. The report consists of two parts: the first presents a conceptual discussion of “clutte ring” of trade mark registers. The second part provides an exploratory empirical analysis of trade mark applications at the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and the European trade mark office (OHIM). This part contains results of a descriptive and an econometric analysis. According to our definition, cluttering arises where firms hold trade marks that are overly broad or unused raising search costs for later applicants. The report distinguishes between three mechanisms that can lead to cluttering. It also considers a series of mechanisms that work against cluttering. This discussion is based on a review of the previous literature. The tentative empirical evidence provided in the second part of the report suggests that trade marks are more frequently registered in several classes at the same time and also that firms in pharmaceuticals increasingly resort to multiple simultaneous applications to ensure that they will register at least one trade mark. There is also some evidence that firms seek to avoid mechanisms such as relative grounds examination which can prevent cluttering. Finally, we report direct survey-based evidence that applicants perceive cluttering to be a problem in specific fields and countries. However, our exploratory analysis does not provide strong evidence that cluttering has already become a systemic problem for the trade mark systems that is comparable to the effect of patent thickets for patent systems

Trademarking activities and total factor productivity: some evidence for British commercial banks using a metafrontier approach

In this paper, we compute a non-parametric Metafrontier Malmquist index to evaluate the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) change among UK-based trademarking and non-trademarking commercial banks between 2005 and 2013. The use of the metafrontier approach allows us to: a) identify the drivers of TFP growth for each group of banks, b) compare the TFP growth of each group to the TFP growth experienced by the whole industry, and c) assess the extent to which the former catches up with the latter measured along the metafrontier. Our results suggest that TFP has been increasing among trademarking banks up to the onset of the financial crisis but this process has since reversed. The catch-up indexes suggest that both groups of banks were catching up with the metafrontier up to the financial crisis although the drivers of this process differed between the two groups. After the financial crisis, improvements in technology have been driven by a small number of commercial banks i.e. the non- trademarking banks. These results suggest that a large section of the commercial banking sector has not been able to overcome the effects of the financial crisis

Empirical studies of trade marks - the existing economic literature

This paper surveys empirical studies employing trade mark data that exist in the economic literature to date. Section 1) documents the use of trade marks by firms in several advanced countries including Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, 2) reviews different attempts to gauge the function of a trade mark as indicator of innovation and product differentiation, and 3) provides an overview of the association of trade marks with dimensions of firm performance and productivity. Sections 4) and 5) give accounts of studies that focus on the social costs and value of trade marks, namely their importance for firm survival, their impact on demand, and firms' incentives to innovate but also to raise rivals' costs. Section 6) covers first endeavours to investigate the interplay between different types of intellectual property rights, while 7) briefly concludes

Empirical studies of trade marks: The existing economic literature

This paper surveys empirical studies employing trade mark data that exist in the economic literature to date. Section 1) documents the use of trade marks by firms in several advanced countries including Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, 2) reviews different attempts to gauge the function of a trade mark as indicator of innovation and product differentiation, and 3) provides an overview of the association of trade marks with dimensions of firm performance and productivity. Sections 4) and 5) give accounts of studies that focus on the social costs and value of trade marks, namely their importance for firm survival, their impact on demand, and firms' incentives to innovate but also to raise rivals' costs. Section 6) covers first endeavours to investigate the interplay between different types of intellectual property rights, while 7) briefly concludes

Intellectual Proerty at the Firm-Level: The Oxford Intellectual Property Firm-Level Database

This paper provides an overview of a new database that contains intellectual property data - in the form of patents and trademarks - for the population of firms registered in the UK. The paper discusses the principal challenges involved in the construction of this integrated database and provides an explanation of the approach taken to address these issues. We employ the integrated dataset to provide descriptive evidence on the firm-level use of intellectual property -including patents and trademarks - in the UK over the period 2000-2007

Do firms that create intellectual property also create and sustain more good jobs? Evidence for UK firms, 2000-2006

A common assumption in innovation policy circles is that creative and inventive firms will help to sustain employment and wages in high wage countries. The view is that firms in high cost production locations that do not innovate are faced with loss of market share from import competition, so jobs move to producers in developing countries with lower labour costs. Domestic firms are encouraged to innovate, and to obtain intellectual property assets to protect their innovations, so that they can sustain local employment and pay high wages. Policies to subsidise R&D and to encourage intellectual property protection are partly justified on these grounds. Nevertheless the available evidence concerning the employment and wage benefits of such activity is rather sparse. In this paper we first survey some existing literature on innovation and jobs. We outline arguments for using both patents and trade marks as indicators of innovation. We then construct a large sample of UK firms observed from 2000 to 2006, matching records of patents and trade marks to company data. We begin by estimating a cross section employment growth equation for 2003-2006 to discover if there is any impact of stocks of trade marks acquired in 2000-2003. We then explore in more detail the impact of recent trade mark and patenting activity on the level of employment and the average rate of pay in these firms. We do this using the data as a six year panel, estimating both an employment function and a relative earnings equation at the firm level. Our aim throughout is to identify and calibrate the assumed positive effects that underpin modern innovation policy