EU Intellectual Property Economy

The European Patent Office and EU Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market have released a 142 page Intellectual Property Rights Intensive Industries: Contribution to Economic Performance and Employment in the European Union study [PDF], promoted as the

first EU-wide study on the overall contribution made by intellectual property intensive industries to the EU economy, in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), employment, wages and trade. 

The study includes information on the main IPR-intensive industries and their contribution to economic performance and trade at EU level and an analysis at Member State level. It contains a section on number of patents, trade marks and designs which originate from each Member State, focusing also on job creation in the internal market.

The data is intended to be comparable with that for the US economy. The methodology is accordingly similar to that used in the March 2012 study by the Economics & Statistics Administration of the US Department of Commerce and the United States Patent & Trademark Office noted here.

The report claims that -

• around 50% of EU industries are IPR intensive, defined as "those having an above average use of IPR per employee"
• IPR-intensive industries account directly for 26% of all jobs in the EU – around 56 million direct jobs. 
• With the addition of 20 million indirect jobs, 1 in 3 of all EU jobs rely on IPR intensive industries. 
• These industries generated almost 39% of total economic activity (GDP) in the EU, worth €4.7 trillion 
• IPR-intensive industries pay higher remuneration than non-IPR intensive industries, with a wage premium of more than 40%. 
• The average weekly remuneration in IPR-intensive industries is €715, compared with €507 in non-IPR intensive industries 
• IPR-intensive industries account for 90% of the EU’s trade with the rest of the world. IPR-intensive industries generated almost 39% of total economic activity in the EU, worth €4.7 trillion, and accounted for most of the EU’s trade with the rest of the world with design- intensive, copyright-intensive and GI-intensive industries generating a trade surplus.

The claimed "Direct contribution of IPR-intensive industries to employment" is

• Trade mark-intensive industries - 45,508,046 people (20.8% of Total EU Economy)
• Design-intensive industries - 26,657,617 (12.2%)
•  Patent-intensive industries - 22,446,133 (10.3%)
• Copyright-intensive industries - 7,049,405 (3.2%)
• GI-intensive industries - 374,345 (0.2%)
• All IPR-intensive industries - 56,493,661