According to a recently published report by the World Intellectual Property Organization, worldwide royalty and licensing revenues amount to an estimate $180 billion per year. The report concludes that growing demand for such rights is stimulating innovation in business. According to the report, royality and licensing revenue was only $2.8 billion in 1970 and $27 billion as late as 1990.
The report notes that intellectual proptery (IP) “allows firms to control which knowledge to guard and which to share so as to maximize learning – a key element of modern open innovation strategies.”
While the traditional model has been for IP to be largely developed in the richer countries, the fastest growth in IP is now coming from the less developed countries. The reports asserts that the gap between richer and poorer countries is narrowing.
