FBA SEMINAR SERIES

The Impact of Patent Troll on R&D Disclosure Policy

Dr. Limin XU, Senior Lecturer in Finance, The University of Adelaide

Date:          30 November 2022 (Wednesday)
Time:         11:00am – 12:00pm
Venue:       Online via Zoom
Host:          Prof. Endong YANG, Assistant Professor of Finance
Zoom Link: https://umac.zoom.us/j/93867022701

Abstract

This paper investigates whether the litigation threats from patent trolls have any impact on firms’ R&D disclosure policy. Our analysis focuses on the staggered adoption of state-level anti-patent troll law, which significantly reduces the patent troll litigation risk for local firms. We find that the adoption of these laws leads to a reduction in firms’ R&D narrative disclosure. The cross-sectional analysis further confirms that the impact is more substantial where firms’ probability of being targeted by patent trolls is higher or their proprietary disclosure costs are more significant and salient. Our results shed light on the conditions that would lead managers to disclose proprietary information and highlight that not only shareholder litigation risk but also patent litigation risk can play an important role in determining firms’ voluntary disclosure policies.

Speaker

Dr. Limin XU is a senior lecturer in Finance at The University of Adelaide, Australia. He received his PhD in Finance from Nanyang Technological University. In 2020, he published two papers in Journal of Corporate Finance as the first author and key author. Also, he published a paper in Finance Research Letters in 2022. His works have appeared in major journals including Review of Finance, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, and Journal of Corporate Finance etc.

 

All are welcome!