Titre : Focus on the accounting treatment of patents: Do patent assessment and recognition rules lead to useful information for investors? Auteurs : Lionel Touchais, Revue : Technology and Innovation Numéro : Issue 4 Volume : 5 Date : 2020/09/18 DOI : 10.21494/ISTE.OP.2020.0559 ISSN : 2399-8571 Résumé : The intangible investments made by companies are not always correctly recognized in financial statements. For patents, according to the accounting standards used and the way the firms obtain them (purchased or internally produced), the financial consequences on the balance sheet (the book value of the patent) and the income statement (the profit and loss) are profoundly different. The question about the assessment and the recognition of intangible items is a major research stream in the field of accounting. Many scholars work on the informational content of the intangibles recorded in financial statements. They demonstrate two main outcomes. On the one hand, with a capitalization of development costs (recognition of an intangible asset in the balance sheet), firms give useful information to investors about the potential future cash flows of their development projects. On the other hand, the information asymmetry related to intangibles can be reduced by disclosing voluntary information about the research and development activity with measures of innovation outputs related to patents. Éditeur : ISTE OpenScience