Companies owning range of registered IP rights perform better, IPOS Singapore study shows

The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) today released two reports analysing the relationship between strong intellectual property and intangible assets portfolios and company performance. The two studies, launched at the INTA 2023 conference and exhibition currently taking place in Singapore, clearly show that owning a range of IP and intangibles drives company growth and market value.

IPOS is supporting the International Trademark Association's Annual Meeting (INTA2023) which is taking place in Singapore at the moment (May 16-20 2023). More than 7,000 delegates have signed up to attend, making it the biggest event of the IP calendar, the organisers suggest.

The first IPOS report - Brands, patents and company performance study – set out to establish whether brands and patents help companies outperform their peers in terms of revenue, net profits and market capitalisation. It looked at a sample of the world’s largest companies and also the largest companies in Singapore.

This analysis found that, on average, the companies studied had about double the revenue, net profit and market capitalisation than their peers.

The report concluded:

“Our findings suggest that intangible assets like brands and patents support companies in securing a competitive advantage, contributing to higher revenues, profits and market capitalisation.”

The second study, Singapore IP and Firms’ Performance Study, looked at local firms’ revenue and profitability and the effect of the ownership of the three most commonly registered Intellectual Property Rights – trade marks, designs and patents.

This report found that combining two or three IPRs does affect company size, invested capital, revenues and profits, although different combinations of the three IPRs have different effects.

For example:

“Firms with the largest revenues and profit are those that own patents. Firms that own patents and designs have the largest revenues, followed by firms that own only patents. For profits, firms that own only patents have the largest profits, followed by firms that own all three types of IPRs.”

The report concluded:

“Similar to results obtained in previous studies done by IP Australia and EPO, this study also finds that IPRs have a positive impact on local firms’ performance, in terms of both the revenues and profits generated. For this Singapore study, between 2010 and 2022, IPR ownership contributed to 5.9% increase in revenue per invested capital, 4.9% increase in revenue per employee, 20.8% increase in profit per invested capital, and 21.7% increase in profit per employee (on average per year).

To grow innovative enterprises using IP and intangible assets, the government should remain committed to supporting companies in their IP creation, management, and commercialisation journey.”

Both reports can be downloaded from the IPOS website. The Brands, patents and company performance study is here, and the Singapore IP and Firms’ Performance Study is here.

Inngot CEO Martin Brassell was invited by INTA to be a speaker at INTA2023. He will be on a panel covering “IP Financing: How to Leverage your Intangible Assets to Secure Financing”, as part of the conference’s Business track. His session starts at 10.45 Singapore time (3.45 GMT) on Thursday, May 18th.