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Study on the impact of IP rights on exports

"The business success triangle: innovation, branding and exports" is a study by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO) and ANDEMA (Asociación para la Defensa de la Marca), with collaboration from the Spanish Chamber of Commerce and the Leading Brands of Spain Forum (FMRE). It studies the impact of Industrial Property rights on exports and, consequently, on business internationalisation, as well as on the economy and employment in Spain.

The report was drawn up by the University of Alicante and complements the first study brought out in 2012 entitled “Impact of trademarks on the Spanish economy and society”. The latter publication analysed, across a broad range of sectors, the impact of trademarks on economic indicators such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), employment, taxation, exports, R&D and the contribution to trade, and advertising. Its main conclusion was confirmation of the importance of trademarks as key factors for the growth and generation of wealth for Spanish society.

Results
The main findings of the latest study show that:

• 76.06% of Spanish exports, worth 261.314 billion euros, are made by companies that use some form of IP protection. That is, three-quarters of Spanish exports contribution are due to Spanish companies opening up to new markets use IP as a strategic tool for positioning themselves.
• 75.04% of the total volume of Spanish exports, valued at 257.79 billion euros, corresponds to exports made by Spanish companies that protect their brands as an intangible asset for differentiation.
• 32.05% of such exports, valued at 110.092 billion euros, were made by companies that hold Patents, Utility Models or Industrial Designs.
• Exporting companies that hold a Patent, Utility Model or Industrial Design and that support their activity with a brand strategy multiply their export activity by 30.
• In terms of employment, a total of 4,144,000 jobs depend, directly or indirectly, on the export activity of companies that hold one of the types of IP protection. This amounts to 73.84% of all employment generated by Spanish exports.
• Of this total, the exporting companies that internationalise their trademark-protected assets generate 4,076,000 jobs, and those that internationalise their protected formal or technical innovations create 1,372,000 jobs.  

These data show that protection of innovation by companies is a key driver of growth for the Spanish economy, both in size and in its capacity for contributing to exports.