Product Market Dynamics and Mergers and Acquisitions: Insights from the USPTO Trademark Data

Executive marketing background, corporate trademark and brand management

“…This research shows that TMT's marketing functional background has a promoting effect on the company's trademark and brand management behavior, which enriches the research on the influencing factors of brand marketing. Second, this research examines trademark application behavior as the breakthrough point of the company's brand management strategy, showing that TMT's marketing functional background has a positive influence on the company's trademark application, indicating that the trademark application behavior also has other meanings than product or service innovation, which is different from most of the western literatures which takes trademark as a measure for product or service innovation (Faurel et al, 2017;Hsu et al, 2017;Li, 2016;Potepa and Welch, 2017). Thus, this research explores the company's trademark application behavior from a new perspective, which is an extension of the research on trademark and brand.…”

“…Krasnikov et al (2009) use trademarks as a measure of customers' brand awareness and brand association, finding that the number of trademarks is related to financial indicators such as cash flow, Tobin's Q and stock returns, estimating the financial impact of the brand on the company. Existing literature also regards trademarks as proxy variables for product and service innovation (Faurel et al, 2017;Hsu et al, 2017;Li, 2016;Potepa and Welch, 2017). Specific to the urgent needs of Chinese enterprises in brand building, this research assumes that not only do trademarks reflect the company's innovation in products and service, they also reflect the company's brand-building strategy.…”

“…Trademark application is often related to the release of new products or services, which reflects the innovation of the company in product and market development to some extent (Faurel et al, 2017). According to the western literatures, trademark is usually regarded as a proxy of product and service innovation (Faurel et al, 2017;Hsu et al, 2017;Li, 2016;Potepa and Welch, 2017).…”

“…Second, different from previous research, this research uses trademark application behavior as an entry point to examine the company's brand management strategy, and finds that the marketing functional background has a positive impact on the company's trademark application, indicating that the trademark application behavior also has other implications than product or service innovation. Most foreign literature treats trademarks as a measure of product or service innovation (Faurel et al, 2017;Hsu et al, 2017;Li, 2016;Potepa and Welch, 2017), but it rarely links trademarks to brands. Nowadays, China's economy has entered a new normal where the domestic market embraces the wave of consumption upgrades.…”