Trade marks and design rights: To what extent do they relate to and measure innovation?

This report examines the extent to which trade marks and design rights indicate innovative activity, the propensity to use trade marks and design rights, and whether the characteristics of an innovation, innovator or process are associated with those propensities. Understanding the propensity to use trade marks and design rights is important because it makes it possible to estimate the number of innovations captured with trade marks or design rights, and thus determine the extent to which trade marks and design rights potentially improve the measurement of innovation compared to (or when used together with) patents. This report opens a nascent theme in the literature by examining whether, to what extent and in which contexts design rights are associated with innovation. This report also examines innovator opinions on such topics as the motives to (not) trade mark innovation and the relative importance of such motives, the effectiveness of trade marks and design rights compared to other appropriation mechanisms, and the perceived impact of trade mark and design right policy on innovative activity of the firm. Finally, this report examines the sustainability in the context of intellectual property right (IPR) issue, an emerging policy concern. Sustainable innovation is growing in importance with both practice and research; however, the value-capturing mechanisms for sustainable innovation and whether IPRs are suitable for sustainable innovation or hinder it is not empirically understood. This study looks at innovator perceptions on trade mark and design right policy and how they potentially impact sustainability and innovation activity.

This report was commissioned and partly funded by the European Union Intellectual Property Office as part of the EUIPO Academic Research Programme.