WIPO releases new data - Global investment in intangible assets doubles

Recently, WIPO and the Louis Business School (LBS) of Italy jointly released the first "World Intangible Investment Focus Report", which shows how intangible assets are increasingly becoming an important driving force for innovation and economic growth in the global knowledge economy. Data show that in the past 15 years, the growth rate of investment in intangible assets such as brands, designs, data and software is three times that of investment in tangible assets such as factories and machinery. Among them, Sweden, the United States and France have the most intensive investment activities, and India's investment is on the rise.

Despite a devastating global crisis and rising interest rates, intangible investment totaled $6.9 trillion in 2023, more than double the $2.9 trillion in 1995. The report shows that since 2008, intangible investment has grown three times faster than tangible investment, reaching $4.7 trillion in 2023.

A game-changing but invisible trend in the global economic system is the rise of intangible assets as a driver and carrier of value in the global economy. Even in the current period of economic uncertainty, investment in intangible assets is booming and consistently outstrips total tangible investment, both in high-income economies such as the United States and Europe and in fast-growing emerging economies such as India.

The World Intangible Investment Focus Report highlights the dominant role of intellectual property-based intangible assets in the global economy and provides hard data to support evidence-based decision-making by governments around the world in their pursuit of innovation-led growth.

The report also shows:

• Resilience in times of economic uncertainty: During the recent economic downturn, intangible investment levels showed greater resilience than tangible investment, even as high interest rates hindered other investment flows.
• Increasing GDP share: Intangible investments account for an increasing share of gross domestic product (GDP) in high-income economies and emerging economies such as India.
• Most intensive regions: The economies with the highest intangible asset investment intensity are Sweden, the United States, and France. For example, by 2023, the United States will invest almost twice as much in intangible assets as in tangible assets. In countries where tangible assets account for a higher proportion of GDP than intangible assets, the gap between the two has been narrowing.
• Major economies (1995-2023): Companies in the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are the main investors in intangible assets, with the United States having by far the highest level of intangible asset investment. France and Germany followed a similar trajectory until 2020, after which France's intangible investment levels surpassed Germany's by a large margin, making it the leader in the EU.
• Emerging economies have seen significant growth: India had the fastest growth in intangible asset investment from 2011 to 2020, exceeding the growth rate of many high-income economies and comparable to the intangible asset investment intensity (as a share of GDP) of Germany and Japan.
• Leading intangible asset types: Software, data and brand are the fastest growing types of intangible assets.

Despite the significant economic impact of intangible assets, traditional measurement frameworks fail to fully reflect the size, composition and impact of intangible assets. The World Intangible Investment Focus Report, based on data from the WIPO-LBS Global INTAN-Invest database, provides the latest cross-border intangible investment indicators, which are essential for informed global decision-making and economic forecasting. The report currently covers 26 countries, accounting for more than half of global GDP, and plans to include more economies in future versions.