关键词: 专利侵权诉讼, 信号理论, 分析师关注, 股票价格, 企业战略决策

Abstract: Through the continuous acquisition of patents, companies convey signal of their robust innovative capabilities to the market, elevating shareholders' and investors' expectations, consequently attracting financial capital. Alongside the surge in corporate patents lies an escalating susceptibility to patent infringement litigation. The impact of such litigation on an company's market value has emerged as a critical practical concern. Prevailing studies predominantly focus on patent infringement litigation behaviors in developed countries like the U.S., positing that such litigation detrimentally affects the average market value of both plaintiff and defendant companies. Nevertheless, these findings cannot be directly extrapolated to China. First, the dominant explanation for the negative effects of patent infringement litigation, steep litigation costs. Diverges substantially in China due to significantly lower costs compared to developed nations like the U.S. Second, the temporal influence of patent infringement litigation on market value transcends the litigation event itself; it requires allowance for the time needed by investors to assimilate information and assess repercussions, warranting the inclusion of temporal lag considerations. Further shaping market value alterations represent investors' perception of patent infringement litigation. Third, unlike the institutional investor-driven stock markets in developed countries, China's stock market is primarily fueled by retail investors who are yet to refine their capacity to evaluate a company's market value within the context of patent litigation. In this milieu, analysts' attention emerge as a pivotal moderating factor. Based on the above analysis, this study devises a theoretical analytical framework based on signaling theory to explore the ramifications of patent infringement litigation on company's market value within the Chinese context. Moreover, the study probes the modulating influence of analysts' attention as a signaling environment. The empirical investigation draws on data from Shanghai and Shenzhen main board-listed companies that disclosed patent infringement dispute-related announcements from 2012 to 2018. The analysis reveals several key findings. First, patent infringement litigation yields a marked positive effect on plaintiff company's stock prices on the announcement date, but subsequently exerts a negative influence on their future market value. Second, patent infringement litigation exhibits an insignificant impact on both announcement date stock prices and future market capitalization of defendant companies. Third, analysts' attention mitigates the positive impact of patent infringement litigation announcements on plaintiff company's announcement date stock prices, magnifies the adverse effect of such announcements on defendant plaintiff company's announcement date stock prices. Analysts' attention have no significant moderating effect on the impact of patent infringement lawsuits on the future market value of plaintiffs and defendants. The article's contributions span theoretical and practical realms. Theoretically, it interweaves signaling theory into the exploration of patent infringement litigation's impact on company market capitalization, injecting a dynamic dimension by tracing how investors' signal interpretations evolve over time. Furthermore, it dissects the moderating role of the signaling environment—specifically analysts' attention—on the connection between patent infringement litigation and company's market capitalization. This augments the theoretical framework, offering a comprehensive perspective on how patent infringement litigation, as a signaling mechanism, shapes company's market capitalization and the contextual factors at play. Notably, the article's findings regarding the impact of patent infringement litigation on defendant company's announcement date contrary from established conclusions centered on developed countries like the U.S. This underscores the distinctiveness of investor views in the Chinese landscape, attributable to the lower litigation costs and comparatively reduced compensation for infringement. In practical terms, the study underscores that the Chinese stock market generally accommodates patent infringement litigation events. In cases of infringement, companies are encouraged to pursue litigation confidently, while those facing infringement claims as defendants need not overly fret, instead focusing on proactive litigation response to transform challenges into opportunities.

Key words: patent infringement litigation, signal theory, analysts' attention, stock price, company strategic decisions