IP and the economy: Key roles and impacts

Productivity growth and SME growth

• After filing for an IP right, Australian SMEs are 16% more likely to experience high employment growth than their peers without recent filings (Zhang, 2021).
• International studies estimate that patents and trade marks increase investors’ estimates of a startup’s value by around 20% (especially in the early development stage and early financing rounds) (Hsu & Ziedonis, 2013).
• For businesses with a valuable invention, their first patent allowance causes a 12% increase in revenue per worker and 22% increase in employment (Kline et al., 2019).
• After filing for a trade mark, Australian businesses on average employ 7% more people and spend 5% more on R&D, compared to the firm and its peers with no trade marks (Falk, 2021).
• In design right-intensive industries, holding registered or certified design rights is linked to higher productivity, R&D spend and exports (Kollmann et al., 2022).

Innovation and commercialisation

• In Australian startups, their first patent grant results in significant wage premia and spurs workforce upgrading to allow for commercialisation (Dobson-Keeffe & Falk, 2025).
• Patent grants are a significant forward indicator of the likelihood that Australian businesses will form collaborations such as joint R&D and joint commercialisation arrangements (Menezes et al., 2024; Nguyen & Falk, 2024).
• Applicants that use IP Australia’s ‘fast track’ options to expedite examination are more likely to renew, commercialise and build on their patents after grant (Higham et al., 2025).
• For small innovators that engage with IP early in their strategic development, the ability to influence examination timing results in more innovations, more commercialised products and enhanced lifetime value to their IP (Higham et al., 2025).
• When businesses launch new products, each additional trade mark is linked to an 8% revenue increase per employee above the revenue generated by the launch (Nathan & Russo, 2022).

Navigating uncertainty and shocks in global markets

• During the COVID-19 shock, firms that were more patent-intensive were less likely to exit, especially if they engaged in R&D and invested in intangibles (Battisti, M., 2023).
• When they can resell their IP on secondary markets, businesses may increase their IP activity when facing uncertainty - for example, patents can act as a store of value, allowing businesses to later recoup their investments in knowledge by licensing or trading the IP (Park et al., 2025).
• After obtaining a trade mark in an export market, Australian manufacturers tend to expand and diversify their exports more in response to tariff and exchange rate shocks (Falk, 2021).

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