Patent Races and Market Value

Patent races are models of strategic interactions between firms competing to develop an invention. The winning firm secures a patent, protecting the invention from imitation. This paper tests the assumption made about the reward structure in patent races, both in discrete and complex industries. We identify patent race winners using detailed information from the patent examination reports at the European Patent Office (EPO). Estimates of a market value equation featuring large, R&D-intensive U.S., European and Japanese firms, show that if firms win patent races, their market value increases significantly. We further show that the gain in market value is significantly larger for patent race winners in discrete industries than for firms in complex industries.