SCALE-UPS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS: THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGICAL AND COMMERCIALISATION CAPABILITIES IN FIRM GROWTH

This paper studies the role of technological and commercialisation capabilities within scaleups. Scale-ups are firms which manage to achieve an annual growth rate of at least 20% over a period of at least three years and with at least 10 employees in the beginning of the period. Based on evidence from IPR literature, we use patent filings to signal capabilities related to technological innovation and trademark filings to signal the downstream capabilities connected with the commercialisation of new products and services. By comparing the IPR flings of the top 250 scale-ups with other scale-ups and non-scale-up firms. this paper provides evidence that commercialisation capabilities contribute more to the growth of these firms than technological capabilities. Scale-ups tend to file trademarks already at a young age indicating that these capabilities are already present when these firms start off whereas patents are filed later on.