This paper investigates how patent applications and grants held by new ventures improve their ability to attract venture capital (VC) financing. We argue that investors are faced with considerable uncer-tainty and therefore rely on patents as signals when trying to assess the prospects of...

This paper investigates how patent applications and grants held by new ventures improve their ability to attract venture capital (VC) financing. We argue that investors are faced with considerable uncertainty and therefore rely on patents as signals when trying to assess the prospects of...

In the presence of asymmetric information, economic agents need to communicate their quality to investors and other parties. While much of the literature focuses exclusively on signaling, we develop a conceptual framework that extends this view with elements of the literature on certification....

Technological change is often hypothesized as one of the main drivers of merger activities. This paper analyzes the role of technology in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) at the firm level. Based on a newly created data set that combines financial information and patent data for public limited...

In the context of increasing globalization of markets, merger and acquisition activities in the 1990s are said to be driven by reorganization processes with respect to concentration on firms? core competencies in order to increase or maintain market power in international markets. This paper...

Technological change is often hypothesized as one of the main drivers of mergeractivities. This paper analyzes the role of technology in mergers and acquisitions(M&As) at the firm level. Based on a newly created data set that combines financialinformation and patent data for public limited...

Germany is one of few countries in which the monetary compensation for inventors is not only determined by negotiations between employer and employee-inventor, but also by relatively precise legal provisions. In this paper, we describe the characteristics of the German Employees' Inventions Act...

Against the background of the so-called "European paradox", i.e. the conjecture that EU countries lack the capability to transfer science into commercial innovations, knowledge transfer from academia to industry has been a central issue in policy debates recently. Based on a sample of German...

While often presumed in academic literature and policy discussions there is little empirical evidence showing that academic patents protect more basic inventions than corporate patents. This study provides new evidence on the basicness of academic patents using German professor patents linked to...

The growing importance of technology relevant non-publication output of university research has come into the focus of policy-makers' interest. A fierce debate arose on possible negative consequences of the increasing commercialization of science, as it may come along with a reduction in...