Firm’s strategy to innovate in a European transition economy

The aim of this paper is to investigate Albanian registered trademarks to understand the characteristics of a successful trademark in a transition economy. In order to verify the research hypothesis on the characteristics of the trademarks (Crass, Czarnitzki, & Toole, 2019) as key indicator of success, we use linear regression on a dataset set based on taxonomy of the legal status of applications and the registration of the trademarks in Albania. Our empirical analyses are based on data from the DPPI (Drejtoria e Përgjithshme e Pronësisë Industriale), Albanian Central Intellectual Property Office, for the period 1994–2019. The findings show evidence of the choice of the trademark name as a critical success factor as well as the characteristics of the activities, as the trademarks used in different product contests or corporate trademark strategies (Antwi, Carvalho, & Carmo, 2021). These results could be relevant both to firms implementing branding strategies and to analysts or policymakers analysing markets in transition economies.