Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.
Non-technical summaryBrands have a ubiquitous presence throughout the economy and in our everyday life. This has its advantages. They enable consumers to identify and memorise products, to determine their origin, and to distinguish products of different providers from each other (Aaker, 1991). The identifiability of a product is an essential requirement for customers to draw on previous experiences with a product while making purchasing decisions. The experiences with the product, even those of others, may prove useful to evaluate otherwise unobservable product characteristics. The evaluation of a product enables customers to assess (i) how functional or effective the product is, (ii) how reliable it is, (iii) how durable it is, (iv) how easy it is to use, (v) how it tastes, sounds or smells and (vi) what side effects it may have (WIPO, 2013, p.81). Positive experiences are likely to lead to repeated purchases, while disappointed customers are more likely to avoid the product. This constitutes an incentive for firms to build a reputation to deliver products and services of a reliable quality, leading to the quality guarantee, implicitly indicated by trademarks. A brand is of economic value only if the respective firm has the right to use this reputational asset exclusively. The registration of a brand as a trademark or through a bundle of trademarks gives the owner a legal monopoly over the protected word, sign, symbol or other graphical representation in connection with the attached commodity. He has the exclusive right to commercially use the protected trademark and is exclusively protected against infringement (Economides, 1998;Baroncelli et al., 2004). Hall et al. (2012) expect trademarks to be "the most widely used" intellectual property right that is "available to essentially any firm". Graham et al. (2013) state that "almost every firm, regardless of size, market, or business strategy, has goodwill to protect". From this perspective, perhaps not every firm but the vast majority of firms can be expected to register trademarks. This paper provides empirical evidence about the proportion of firms that have registered trademarks in 2010 and analyses the role of several firm characteristics that are related to a firm's decision to register trademarks. The empirical analysis relies on a large sample of about 5,400 German firms from many different industries in the German business sector. The extrapolated proportion of 18% of firms with at least one registered...