The importance of intellectual property proven by the new study

On the 25th of October 2016, the third study report was published by the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights and the European Patent Office. The report focuses on economic performance of intellectual property (IP) rights intensive industries in the European Union.

The aim of the study was to offer an updated insight into the combined contribution to the economies of the European Union from industries that make intensive use of the different types of IP rights. The results show that different IP rights are economically beneficial and compared to a similar report from 2013, it can be seen that the aforementioned industries have coped better during the crisis.

Amongst other things, it can be seen from the report that 38% of all employment in the European Union can be directly and indirectly attributed to IP rights intensive industries. At the same time, the aforementioned industries also offer significantly higher wages (46%). 42% of the GDP in the European Union is attributable to IP rights intensive industries and they also account for about 90 % of European Union trade with the rest of the world.

The report is accessible in English here.