Handbook on Deriving Capital Measures of Intellectual Property Products
The latest System of National Accounts (the 2008 SNA) explicitly recognises, for the
first time, that expenditures on research and experimental development (R&D) should
be recorded as capital formation. This is a natural extension to the 1993 SNA, which
recommends recording many acquisitions of software and databases, mineral exploration,
and entertainment, artistic and literary originals as capital formation, too. These
products have a common characteristic, namely that their value reflects the underlying
intellectual property they embody, which is why they are referred to collectively
in this publication as intellectual property products (IPPs). But they also share
another important characteristic: their measurement is not straightforward, and in
the absence of clear guidance it is highly likely that estimates will not be comparable
between countries. This Handbook is designed to provide that guidance by considering
IPPs collectively, based on their common characteristics, by type, based on any specificities,
such as data availability, and by detailed transaction - for example the valuation
of IPPs that have been produced for internal use by their developers, the valuation
of unsuccessful IPPs, and the production of IPPs produced and made freely available
by government.
Published on December 03, 2009Also available in: Korean