Legal disputes over the ownership of intellectual property (IP) have tripled over the last three decades costing hundreds of billion US-dollars to the US economy. In this paper, I examine how IP litigation affects the disclosure of subsequent innovation. Using the timeliness of patent pre-grant disclosures, I find that current IP litigation delays the disclosure of innovation (delay effect). This evidence is consistent with firms delaying the disclosure of similar technologies until IP uncertainty is resolved. In contrast, firms accelerate innovation disclosures when they have closed IP case experience (deterrence effect). While the delay effect leads to lower knowledge spillover, the deterrence effect mitigates incoming industry competition. I confirm these findings using the Supreme Court decision of eBay vs. MercExchange within a difference-in-differences design, which lowered the potential costs of enforcement for defendants of computer patents. Patents even become more informative when firms have closed IP litigation. Finally, weak IP institutions such as more lenient courts contribute to those disclosure effects. Overall, this paper highlights both negative and positive externalities of IP litigation on IP disclosures.

Presented at: Paderborn University (2023); Emerging Scholars in Accounting Conference Frankfurt (2023); EAA Talent Workshop Madrid (2023); TRR 266 annual conference (2023); KU Leuven (2025); Erasmus University Rotterdam (2025); EAA annual meeting Bucharest (2024); Hawaii Accounting Research Conference (2025); Accounting Research Day Lille (2025)

This paper investigates the value relevance of acquired intangible assets using a comprehensive sample for 1,647 publicly-listed US-firms from 2002 to 2018. This sample allows us to assign acquired intangible assets into different classes (e.g., tech-, customer-, contract-, and marketing-intangible assets) and their respective economic lifetimes (i.e., definite vs indefinite useful lives) to test their relevance for equity investors. We predict and find positive associations for most intangible assets, however with different economic significance. In particular, tech- and customer-related intangible assets are priced by equity investors. Furthermore, definite intangible assets are more relevant than indefinite intangibles. These and additional results aid firms and their equity investors’ understanding of the economic impact of intangible assets, and also are potentially relevant to standard setters as they consider a proposal to subsume several intangible assets into goodwill.

Presented at: Paderborn University (2020); European Accounting Association Annual Meeting (2021); TRR 266 Mini Conference: Accounting for Transparency and Capital Markets (2021); FASB staff meeting on intangible asset accounting (2022)

This paper investigates the association between net values of acquired intangible asset classes, their inherent audit risk, and audit fees. First, our findings using a large and hand-collected sample show that acquired intangibles, in general and especially with definite lifetimes, remain less expensive than the alternative accounting treatment: goodwill. Second, and most important, we show that auditors’ use of intangible-related critical audit matters (CAMs) moderates this association in a difference-in-differences design. Intangible assets increase audit fees especially in high litigation industries, but intangible-related CAMs moderate the link between intangible assets and audit fees. These results are consistent with the hypotheses that public disclosure of intangible-related CAMs gives the auditor subject-specific protection against audit risks from acquired intangible assets. This, in turn, allows them to reduce audit fees. Overall, these results are important for auditors, standard setters and also inform researchers regarding the risk-reducing effects of CAM disclosures.

Presented at: Paderborn University (2021); TRR 266 annual meeting (2021); European Accounting Association Annual Meeting (2022); 9th EIASM workshop on audit quality Milan (2022); Doctoral colloquium at fourth Scandinavian Accounting Conference Oslo (2022); Open Universiteit Heerlen (2023); University of Oldenburg (2023); Hawaii Accounting Research Conference (2024);  EAA annual meeting Bucharest (2024); IASB feedback session at EAA annual meeting (2024)

The measurement and reporting of intangible assets are key emerging issues for the FASB. We contribute to the discussion by examining (a) how reporting incentives and business indicators impact impairment differently for definite and indefinite intangible assets, (b) the moderating role of internal and external monitoring on impairment recognition, and (c) the variation in media and analyst coverage based on the type of intangible asset. Our findings reveal disparities in impairment indicators and a significant impact of reporting incentives, particularly for acquired intangibles. This highlights the necessity of separately analyzing the impairment of definite and indefinite intangibles and goodwill. Second, internal and external monitoring strongly moderates the likelihood of asset impairments for indefinite intangibles and goodwill under high impairment pressure. This highlights the risk of undermining the quality of financial reporting through discretion in accounting for intangibles, but also the role of strong corporate governance in enhancing the reporting quality of intangibles. Third, we find that even sophisticated users, i.e., the media and analysts during conference calls, do not pay sufficient attention to the impairment decisions of definite and indefinite intangibles, allowing firms to exploit the discretion in intangible impairment that remains under the radar. Overall, our study contributes to the scarce literature on indicators of impairment of non-goodwill intangibles by providing empirical evidence that impairment indicators differ between definite and indefinite intangibles and how media coverage and analyst’s questions on conference calls differ for impairments of definite and indefinite intangibles and goodwill. Given the growing importance of intangibles, our findings are relevant to accounting regulators, analysts, auditors, investors and others in assessing the risk of impairment of intangibles.

Presented at: Bentley University (2023); Paderborn University (2023); Nordic Accounting Conference (2023); EAA annual meeting Bucharest (2024); VHB annual meeting (2024); Fox and Haskayne Accounting Conference (2024); Accounting Research Day Lille (2025)

We examine prudent risk-taking by lending syndicates as a response to central banks’ corporate quantitative easing (QE) that targets non-financial firms. The introduction of the corporate sector purchase program (CSPP) of the European Central Bank (ECB) allows us to study how lending syndicates adapt to an unexpected decrease in demand for credit by CSPP-eligible borrowers and operate in higher risk and lower return environments. We show that affected syndicates engage in prudent risk-taking by redirecting capital to first-time and non-relationship borrowers, particularly in the leveraged loan segment, while simultaneously implementing mechanisms to manage the heightened risk. We investigate prudent risk-taking along three dimensions. First, we provide evidence for the adjustment of loan contracting terms, reflected in stricter collateral requirements and cross-default clauses, alongside a reduction in loan sizes and maturities. Second, we find that syndicate size and relationship intensity between the lead arranger and participants increases. Third, borrowers within a high debt enforcement regime are likely to receive loans in comparison to low enforcement regimes. These findings suggest that, following corporate QE, syndicates actively employ risk mitigation mechanisms, demonstrating a cautious approach to managing elevated risks rather than resorting to excessive risk-taking.

Presented at: Paderborn University (2022); University of Mannheim (2024); University of Tübingen (2024); 21st Corporate Finance Days (2024); TRR 266 annual conference (2024); 32nd Finance Forum Pamplona (scheduled)

We estimate the valuation of intellectual property collateral in loan pricing and provide evidence on the economic significance of a key risk associated with patenting activity, litigation risk. By comparing loans of the same borrower at the same origination date, we show that securing credit with IP reduces the yield spread. Further, the reduction in yield spread is increasing with the number of IP pledged, where patent collateral is more valuable than trademark collateral. In a novel analysis, we use data on the outcomes of litigation over ownership of intellectual property to assess the uncertainty over IP on loan contracting. We document that litigation risk over IP ownership rights indeed represents a fundamental source of uncertainty for borrowers, and that greater uncertainty results in lenders placing lower value on both IP collateral and other collateral types. The increase in credit spreads is significantly pronounced when there is current litigation over IP relative to cases where IP litigation risk has been resolved. Credit spread also increases with the number of IP litigation cases. 

Presented at: TRR 266 Mini Conference: Accounting for Transparency and Capital Markets (2021); Paderborn University (2022); University of North Carolina (2022) 

Acquired intangibles and loan covenant design (with Wayne Landsman and Soenke Sievers)