The Value of Trademarks

We create a new measure of the value of an important, but previously understudied, intangible asset--trademarks. We quantify the stock market reaction to the publication of individual trademarks manually matched to U.S. publicly traded firms. We find that trademarks are used ubiquitously and possess substantial value: the median trademark is worth $20.3 million. Firms that publish trademarks subsequently launch new products, increase sales, invest more in physical capital, hire more employees, increase production output, become more profitable, and increase their market share considerably. For identification, we exploit the quasi-random assignment of USPTO examining attorneys to trademarks.