Trademarks’ relatedness to product and service innovation: A branding strategy approach

The use of trademark data in innovation studies is still limited because as yet no guidelines exist to ascertain which trademarks relate to innovation. This paper proposes that a branding strategy approach may help to identify innovation related trademarks. Companies use distinctive branding strategies for innovation and these branding strategies have important consequences for the design of new trademarks and their application scope. Based on a sample of Benelux and Community trademarks, we find that trademarks for brand creation relate more often to product innovation. In addition, we find negative effects of a trademark's industry scope on its relatedness to product innovation, and of a trademark's geographic scope on its relatedness to service innovation. Our findings bear several key implications for further research towards identifying innovation-related trademarks from a branding strategy perspective.