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VALUATION EFFECTS OF
PATENT QUALITY
During recent years, price–earnings (P/E) and price–book (P/B) ratios have
reached historic highs, especially in the case of technology stocks. On the one
hand, historic P/E and P/B ratios may suggest an excessive amount of optimism
on the part of tech stock investors (see Hirschey, 1998, 2001). On the other hand,
an increasing divergence between stock prices and fundamental factors, such as
earnings and book values, may imply a decline in the usefulness of traditional
accounting information for security valuation. This may be especially true in the
case of technology stocks. For new companies in emerging technologies, ...