Geographical differences in intellectual property strategies and outcomes: establishment-level analysis across the American settlement hierarchy

Abstract

The wealth of utility patent data has made this form of intellectual property (IP) protection the primary focus of the economics and geography of innovation. However, in addition to utility patents, the IP expressed in a firm's products or processes may also be protected via design patents, trademarks, copyright, or in non-compete and non-disclosure agreements. Recent research suggests that mixed modes of technological and non-technological innovation are associated with the most rapid firm growth and, thus, mixed-mode IP strategies may provide important insight for understanding the geography of innovation. If non-technological IP is an important complement to technological IP, then analyses focusing solely on the impacts of patents are misspecified. In addition, if the capability for pursuing these various tactics differs across the settlement hierarchy, then our understanding of the geography of IP is similarly distorted by the singular focus on patents. The objectives of this study are to examine how these tactics of protection are combined into IP strategies, how these strategies vary over the settlement hierarchy, how the different strategies are associated with different economic outcomes, and how these different strategic orientations may differentiate entrepreneurial ecosystems across space.