“又练又说”——专利信息披露与并购价值识别

“Practice and Talk”:Patent Disclosure and Market’s Recognition of M&A Value

近年来,国家不断引导资本市场重视公司的创新能力。公司的发明专利是市场了解其创新能力的重要信息来源,公司对于专利的披露决策决定了市场获知该信息的及时性。对公司而言,专利披露存在较高的成本,因此,探究向市场及时披露专利信息究竟能给公司带来何种价值,对公司的专利披露决策至关重要。本文从帮助市场识别公司并购价值的角度对这一问题展开讨论,发现并购方的专利披露可以显著加强市场对并购价值的识别。机制研究显示,并购方的专利披露是市场评估其创新能力的重要信息渠道,市场会根据对并购方创新能力的认知,调整对创新能力所带来的并购价值的预期。进一步研究表明,专利披露还会促进公司的实际发展。本文为公司的专利披露决策及国家如何引导公司披露专利、提高市场资源配置效率提供了借鉴。

In recent years,there has been a continuous effort by the government to emphasize the importance of firms’innovation capabilities in capital markets.Invention patents held by firms serve as crucial sources of information for the capital market to assess their innovation capabilities.The decision of firms regarding patent disclosure determines the timeliness of the market’s knowledge about their patent information. However, patent disclosure comes with significant costs for companies. Therefore, investigating what value can be brought to firms by disclosing more sufficient patent information to the market is crucial to the firms’ patent disclosure decision. This study approaches the issue from the perspective of helping the capital market recognize the value of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals. The findings reveal that the patent disclosure of acquiring firms in M&A transactions significantly enhances the market’s ability to identify the value of their M&A deals. The mech-anism analyses suggest that the patent disclosure of the acquiring firm serves as a crucial information channel for the market to assess its innovation capabilities. The market adjusts its perception of the acquiring firm’s innovation capabilities and subsequently adjusts its expectation regarding the M&A deal’s value attributable to ac-quiring firm’s innovation capabilities. Furthermore, this study finds that patent disclosure also contributes to the actual performance of acquiring firms in the long-term. Overall, this study enhances our understanding of the value of pat-ent disclosure from its impact on the efficiency of capital market’s price discovery, particularly in the context of M&A transactions. It highlights the potential benefits that can be derived from more com-prehensive patent disclosure to the market. The research contributes to the literature of patent disclosure and the value of M&A. Mean-while, it provides insights for firms’ patent disclosure decisions and also provides support for the government’s efforts to further encour-age firms’ patent disclosure and improve market resource allocation efficiency.