The paper analyzes how geographical clustering of beneficiaries might affect the effectiveness of public innovation support programs. The geographical proximity of firms operating in the same industry or field of technology is expected to facilitate innovation through knowledge spillovers and...

This paper tests a number of hypotheses on the use and effectiveness of patents and trade secrets designed to protect innovation. While previous studies have often considered patents and trade secrets as substitutes for one another, we investigate the complementary role of the two protection...

Trademarks are often supposed to reduce substitutability and imitability of product innovations. Using German CIS data for 2010, we provide empirical evidence that trademarking firms assess easy product substitutability as less characteristic for their competitive environment. This is...

The market launch of product innovations is the most visible output of a firm's investment in innovation activities. To achieve this objective most efficiently, firms strengthen their technological capabilities, acquire external knowledge in a number of different ways, and optimize their...