Trade Surplus of $180 Million on Intellectual Property in Korea in 2023

                                                Myung-Shin Kim, Adviser 

                                                            The Korean Patent Attorneys Association

On March 20, the Bank of Korea released the 'Intellectual Property Trade Balance 2023' statistics. It recorded the most significant annual surplus of $180 million. Intellectual property rights include industrial property rights such as patents, utility models, industrial designs, and trademarks and copyrights such as music, video, drama, webtoons, computer programs, software, etc.

The intellectual property trade balance is calculated by separately collecting the current status of the international transactions related to intellectual property rights among the current account items. 

If Korea receives a price for intellectual property rights from foreign countries, it is considered to have exported them, and if Korea pays for intellectual property rights to foreign countries, it is considered to have imported them. 

Korea's intellectual property trade balance posted a $160 million surplus for the first time in history in 2021. In 2022, it returned to a deficit of $1.11 billion but was in the black again in 2023.

Dividing by type of intellectual property rights, the trade balance of industrial property rights such as patent, industrial design, and trademark rights was a deficit of $2.62 billion in 2022 but a deficit of $1.86 billion in 2023.

Meanwhile, the copyright's trade balance was a surplus of $1.74 billion in 2022, but it was a surplus of $2.21 billion in 2023. Among copyrights, music and video copyrights were the largest ever at $1.1 billion, while R&D and software were at $1.11 billion.

Dividing by industry, the manufacturing sector had a surplus of $2.77 billion, but the service sector had a deficit of $2.71 billion. Among the manufacturing industries, electrical and electronic products had a surplus of $2.11 billion, and automobiles and trailers had a surplus of $1.65 billion, the largest surplus ever, whereas the Information and communications industry had a deficit of $1.45 billion.

By country, Korea had a deficit of $3.23 billion to the United Kingdom and a deficit of $2.09 billion to the United States. However, Korea had a surplus of $2.52 billion to China and a surplus of $1.36 billion to Vietnam.