Trademarks

Trademarks provide a substantially different look at heterogeneity in the Norwegian economy.

Whereas the patent-lens provides a look at differentiation in terms of technically-oriented invention, the trademark-lens provides a look at commercialization activities minted on making what the applicant sells distinct in the eyes of the consumer. The use of trademarks involves a substantially different part of the population of Norwegian firms. There are much fewer manufacturing firms, and many more firms in the tertiary sector, not least in retail and wholesale. The overlap of seems to be on the order of 5-10 percent.

48 An earlier table was based on gross counts of applicants. This table normalized is the applicants for applications.

533

INDIVIDUAL LARGE SME SIZE UNKNOWN FIRM UNKNOWN

58

The basis and the approach is much the same as for the patent database⁴⁹

3.3.1. Trademark applications and registrations

. There are however differences to be noted. First, trademarks do not have technical fields that we can translate to technical areas. Instead it has 45 fields of application that are not immediately helpful in analysis.

Second, the status is less fine-grained. These are ignored for present purposes. The underlying industrial activity relies solely on the link to the applicant’s industry where available. We know only whether the trademark has been registered or has not (yet) been registered. Finally, the incidence of multiple applicants is much smaller than in the case of patenting.

There were 2,900 Norwegian trademark applications in 2003, as against 2550 in 1996. In the period 1994-2003 the annual number of Norwegian applications fluctuated from a low of 1,828 in 1994 to a high of 3,800 in 2000. Smoothing these fluctuations, Norwegian applications grew 32 percent from 1994-1998 to the subsequent five-year period 1999-2003. Foreign applications expanded 54 percent across the two periods, while the Norwegian share dropped from 35 percent to 30 percent. The corresponding share of trademarks registered for Norwegian applicants fell from 25 to 21 percent.

Table 2-3 Trademarks applications and registrations per year for domestic and foreign applicants: 1994-1998 and 1999-2003.

Trademarks Applicant 1994-1998 1999-2003

Applications Domestic 12295 16172

Foreign 34966 53766

Domestic in percent 35 30

Registered Domestic 7937 10531

Foreign 31725 50989

Domestic in percent 25 21

Source: NIFU STEP trademark-database built on Norwegian Patent Office data.

3.3.2. Regional comparison of patent and trademark applications

The degree of commercialization activity represented by trademarks can be seen in relation to the inventive activity behind patenting. Trademark applications are an indicator of market competition and are therefore to be expected in conjunction with markets. Oslo and environs, Trondheim, and Bergen account for nearly three-quarters of the total number of Norwegian applications.

Figure 2 demonstrates the regional distribution of Norwegian trademark applicants. The dominance of the area around the capital, Oslo and Akershus, is even more striking than with patent

49 It is based on the updated data from the Norwegian Patent Office database covering all domestic trademarks applied for and/or registered since 1990, which NIFU STEP has linked against the national registry of Norwegian enterprises.

applications. Trademark applications generally outnumber patent applications two-to-one for the period. The relative levels however vary considerably down at the regional level, indicating that these activities reflect something about economic activity beyond scale in a given region. The two-handed figure illustrates the regional variations between patent and trademark levels. The line indicates the proportion of trademarks to patent applications (the right-handed axis). Oslo sets itself out as the commercial center, where trade-marking leads patenting four-to-one. In Rogaland, a moderate sized Norwegian city where the seat of the oil-industry is, there are a disproportionate number of patent-applications in relation to trademark applications.

Figure 2-3 Patenting and trademark applications by district of origin: 1993-2004. Two-handed axes: the right shows fractional counts for trademark applications (normalized counts); the right for proportion of trademark per patent applications.

Source: NIFU STEP trademark-database built on Norwegian Patent Office data.

* the patent applications included 160 foreign applicants. These are excluded together with a total of 90 applicants whose geographic location could not be established (42 for trademark and 47 for patent applicants)

3.3.3. Norwegian trademark applications by field of applicant

The business areas of trademark applicants overlap to a modest degree with patent applicants. The degree of overlap is of the order 5 to 10 percent, indicating that the populations involved are quite distinct. Organizations involved in diversification in the eyes of the market are thus substantially different from those involved in technological differentiation involving patenting. Larger more diversified firms more likely to apply both for patents and trademarks.

0

60

Trademark users are predominantly service sector firms. The number of trademark applicants who are individuals with no evident affiliation makes up around 14 percent of the overall volume of trademark applications (in contrast to over 40 percent in the case of patent applications). Figure 3 presents the breakdown of enterprise applicants by industry for the two five-year periods.

Figure 2-4 Norwegian trademark applicants by industry, (N=28,482): 1994-2003⁵⁰

Source: NIFU STEP trademark-database built on Norwegian Patent Office data.

The use of trademarks in Norway has increased by about a third (32 percent by normalized Norwegian applications) from the mid 1990s to the first part of the new century. Manufacturing enterprise accounted for a substantial 3300 applications or 11 percent of the trademark applicants identified here. This group, which is more readily identified with patenting activity, grew by 10 percent across the ten year period. The largest applicant group is that of retailers and wholesalers who generally market the wares of foreign producers.

The more knowledge intensive service enterprises are actually more intensive users. The combination of business, computer/telcom, and research and teaching services (which includes research institutes, educational institutes, as well as some public sector services) out-number retail and wholesale industries, accounting for over 27 percent of all domestic trademark applications. In addition, trademark use in these sectors grew much faster than the average for the period. Both

50 The 3530 applications from individuals are excluded. A further 2138 enterprise-applications of unknown industry are also excluded.

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000

NATURAL RESOURCES (Nace 2-14) COMPUTER & TELCO SERVICES (Nace 64,

72)

computer and telecom services and research and teaching services more than doubled during the period, the latter in part a testimony to effects of the Norwegian dot-com era.

3.3.4. Norwegian trademark applications by size of applicant

Small firms dominate domestic trademark applications, accounting for over 55 percent of domestic trademark applications in the ten year period. As above, the actual proportion is likely to be higher, given that enterprises whose size could not be identified in this exercise, are likely to be small firms.

Application levels among small firms fluctuated the most, especially during the economic boom from 1998-2001. At the height of the boom (2000), small firm applications numbered 2150 or 140 percent above its level four years before and four years after.

Figure 2-5 Trademark applicants by size-class⁵¹ (N= 28,475) normalized counts

Source: NIFU STEP trademark-database built on Norwegian Patent Office data.

Trademark applications among large firms on the other hand remain relatively stable through the period, at about 18 percent of the total. A major difference with patenting is the much lower proportion of individuals involved in trademark activities. Their proportion was however more stable here than with patenting, strengthening suspicions that a substantial number are of these actually single-person enterprises.

51 The contribution of 3,200 other firms whose size is unknown is not included here. These firms however are assumedly small firms. See table

244 287 332 356 378 505 529 441 394 414

311

153 160 188 233 196 211

428 477 425 477

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

INDIVIDUAL LARGE SME SIZE UNKNOW FIRM UKNOWN

62