Patterns of Protecting Both Technological and Nontechnological Innovation for Service Offerings: Case of the Video-Game Industry

Service innovation involves both technological and nontechnological aspects, which need to be protected as intellectual property. Thus, it is worth analyzing patents and trademarks at the same time to examine innovation-protection mechanisms considering that not only patents but also trademarks can play a significant role in protecting different aspects of innovation. In response, this paper focuses on the usage of trademarks and suggests hybrid intellectual property strategies to integrate patents and trademarks to understand the characteristics of innovation strategy—the patterns of innovation protection. We employed the United States Patent and Trademark Office database and conducted a sector-level and firm-level analysis. As a case study, we focused on the game industry, in which both patents and trademarks are considered the key drivers for innovation.