From a distinctive sign to an exchangeable asset: exploring the U.S. market for trademark licensing

Abstract

A remarkable growth in the value of trademark licensing has been recently recorded. Our paper contributes to the understanding of this under-explored phenomenon using a dataset newly released by the USPTO. Our study analyses the evolution of licensing activities in the U.S. during the 2003-2017 period, the characteristics of these trademarks and agreements, and certain features of the licensing parties involved. We found that licensing activities varied considerably during these years. They were usually signed between two parties only, and, on average, they involved more than one trademark. Excluding underreporting effect, the analyses reveal that a large portion of heterogeneity in licensing activity is due to the NICE international classes associated with each trademark. Indeed, trademark licensing agreements appear to be unevenly distributed across these classes, suggesting that this activity and the way it is carried out is correlated with the market to which the licensed trademark refers. URL: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ciai Industry and InnovationFrom a Distinctive Sign to an Exchangeable Asset: Exploring the U.S. Market for Trademark Licensing 1.2 has become more and more an asset that can be autonomously traded (Beebe 2004;Ramello 2006;Ramello and Silva 2006). The massive volume of trademark transactions resulted in the unveiling of so-called 'markets for trademarks ' (Castaldi 2019b;