ارتباط بین کیفیت حق ثبت اختراع در شرکت و ارزش بازار - صنعت داروسازی آمریکا

This study examined the relationships between corporate market value and four patent quality indicators – relative patent position (RPP), revealed technology advantage (RTA), Herfindahl–Hirschman Index of patents (HHI of patents), and patent citations – in the US pharmaceutical industry. The results showed that RPP and patent citations were positively associated with corporate market value, but HHI of patents was negatively associated with it, while RTA was not significantly related to it. Thus, if pharmaceutical companies want to enhance their market value, they should increase their leading positions in their most important technological fields, cultivate more diversity of technological capabilities, and raise innovative value of their patents. In addition, this study found that market value of pharmaceutical companies with high patent counts was higher than that of pharmaceutical companies with low patent counts, and suggested that pharmaceutical companies with low patent counts should increase RPP in their most technological fields, decrease HHI of patents, or raise patent citations to further enhance their market value. Furthermore, this study developed a classification for the pharmaceutical companies to divide them into four types, and provided some suggestions to them.

In the era of knowledge economy, competitive advantages of firms are less based on the allocation of physical assets, and more on intangible assets, such as patents. Although patents are intangible and their value cannot be accurately measured, companies must develop and increase their corporate value by proactively focusing on patents. The disparity between the book value of publicly traded companies and their market value has increased steadily in recent years [1]. Breitzman and Thomas thought that the substantial value of intangible assets is not accounted for on the financial statements of most companies [2]. Thus, the information provided in annual reports about innovative activities is inadequate and increasing the requirements of annual reports would enhance investors' understanding of the financial statements [3]. Estimating the corporate value based on the patent quality may therefore provide insights into the value of companies' intangible assets.

This study proposed four hypotheses to explore the relationship between firms' patent quality and their market value in the US pharmaceutical industry. Although some previous researches discussed the influence of patent indicators upon market value, this study found that these patent indicators mainly represented the quantitative aspect of patents, such as patent counts. There is no study exploring the influence of patent quality upon companies' market value from the four aspects of patent quality — leading position, technological capability, concentration of patents, and innovative value of patents. Therefore, this study used four patent qualitative indicators – RPP, RTA, HHI of patents, and patent citations – to explore their influences upon corporate market value to fill this research gap. The results of this study indicated that RPP of a company in its most important technological field was positively associated with its market value. HHI of patents was negatively associated with its market value. Additionally, patent citations were positively associated with its market value. However, RTA of a company in its most important technological field was not positively associated with its market value. Therefore, hypotheses, H1, H3 and H4, were significantly supported in this study, but hypothesis H2 was not.