1. Thoughts on "A brand new indicator" Stephan Gauch Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research stephan.gauch@isi.fraunhofer.de

2. Main message of the paper There is a gap to fill between invention and innovation Trademarks are signals to customers Using trademarks competitors fight "symbolic battles" in the market Some examples

3. Dynamic a.k.a. "Schumpeterian" Competition (DC) Competition is not about prices or "the marginal" in general Evolutionary concept: Survival of the fit(t)est Equilibrum is "illusionary" DC is fierce: "not that kind of competition which counts but the competition [...] which strikes not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms but at their foundations and their very lives" Recursive Cycles of Innovation vs. Imitation are drivers of competition Creative Destruction "Strength"of DC is different in different industries.

4. Data and Methods Data source is limited to OHIM data Visual comparison of non-indexed time-series 11.5% AAGR is huge. What does it tell us? What does it not tell? Division into low tech, medium low... is rather unclear.

5. Potential ways to proceed Trademarks could be a good complementary indicator for measuring DC. Question: Are trademarks sufficient to describe DC? Strengthening the argument: Trademarks are an indicator of DC as they are a reaction to strong competition Matching trademark applications to CIS data and analyze relation between perceived competition and trademark filings Alternatively: Match Hirsch-Herfindahl Indices of sectors against macro trademark indicators Match structural indicators against trademark indicators (distribution in size, turnover...) A theoretical foundation on the micro level would be nice to have Registering a trademark is one step in branding. What about further steps How to explain the extreme prolonged growth rates. What does it tell us?