K-content frenzy drives IP rights trade to record surplus

Korea's trade balance in intellectual property rights posted a surplus of $180 million in 2023 on the back of the growing popularity of K-pop and K-content.

Twenty-one K-pop stars performed at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles as part of KCON LA 2023 last August. [CJ ENM]

Riding high on the growing popularity of K-pop and K-content, Korea's trade balance in intellectual property rights posted a surplus of $180 million last year, an all-time high.

The turnaround from the previous year's deficit of $1.1 billion tops the previous record of $160 million in the black posted in 2021.

According to Statistics Korea’s preliminary data released on Wednesday, trading of industrial intellectual property rights, including patents, incurred a deficit of $1.9 billion, while copyright income bolstered the balance with a surplus of $2.2 billion.

The contraction of the trade deficit in industrial intellectual property from $2.6 billion previous year and $2.2 billion in 2021 was attributed by the statistics agency to an increase in manufacturing patent revenue, especially outbound transactions in the automotive and EV battery sectors to local companies’ overseas entities.

The trade balance involving patents and utility model rights reported a deficit of $700 million last year, compared to $1.9 billion in the red the previous year.

Meanwhile, the trade deficit from trademarks and franchise rights expanded to $1.2 billion from 2022’s $650 million, due mainly to increased imports of overseas fashion brands.

On the other hand, the trade balance in copyrights achieved an all-time high.

The general content copyrights trade balance reached a record of $1.1 billion in 2023, continuing its upward trend from the previous year’s $880 million and 2021’s $410 million. Of the figure, music and video content copyrights logged a surplus of $950 million, also a record high.

Software copyrights saw a trade deficit of $2.1 billion, compared to the previous year’s $2.2 billion shortfall, while the balance in database-related copyrights inched up to $3.1 billion from 2022’s $3 billion.

Manufacturing drove the bottom line with a trade surplus of $2.8 billion, led primarily by electronics and cars, while the service sector saw a deficit of $2.7 billion with information and telecommunications amounting to $1.5 billion in net losses.

China was the biggest net importer of Korea’s intellectual property rights, with a trade surplus of $2.5 billion. Outbound transactions to the country came in at $2.8 billion.

The balance with Vietnam stood at $1.4 billion in surplus, with an export volume of $1.5 billion.

With the United States, Korea had an outbound transaction total of $5.2 billion and inbound total of $7.3 billion, bringing the trade balance to a deficit of $2.1 billion.

Major companies in Korea with over 10 trillion won ($7.5 billion) in total assets racked up a trade surplus of $6.1 billion. Small to mid-sized enterprises, on the other hand, saw a deficit of $6.1 billion, with foreign-invested enterprises taking up the majority with a net loss of $5.8 billion.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]