Trust in information security technology: An intellectual property analysis

While zero-trust (ZT) technologies cover many aspects of trust in information security (TinIS) critical to Federal enterprises, more research is required to effectively identify their benefits at scale. In this sense, an appropriate valuation of ZT intellectual property (IP) uncovers future challenges with ZT principles to both scholars and Federal enterprises. Therefore, this research attempts to understand the marginal effects of having ZT IP on Federal enterprise governance in terms of return on government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and e-participation. We collected objective data from Derwent Innovation (Clarivate Analytics) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO IP Statistics) to test the interplay of the 1297 ZT strategic patent with Federal enterprise governance. Through panel regression models using fixed effects, we conduct Heckman correction model analyses and the generalized moment method (GMM) to alleviate potential sampling biases and endogeneity. The findings suggest that ZT strategic patent is positively related to both government effectiveness and regulatory quality but without any effect on e-participation. Furthermore, we find that diverse technological IP portfolios in ZT technologies do not strengthen the effects of ZT strategic patent on Federal enterprises.