This Annex provides background on the conceptual framework underpinning the report. It summarizes the report's country coverage, discusses the challenges in measuring intangible investment, and outlines the measurement framework used to classify intangible assets.
About this report: Co-published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Luiss Business School (LBS), the World Intangible Investment Highlights (WIIH) report, drawing on the Global INTAN-Invest Database, serves as the key reference publication for the latest cross-country statistics on investment in intangible assets.
Country coverage: The latest July 2026 release of the Global INTAN-Invest Database offers annual and quarterly estimates of intangible investment from 1995 to 2025 for 34 economies, including 27 EU economies, plus Brazil, Canada, India, Japan, the Philippines, the UK and the US. Due to differences in microdata availability, the asset coverage and time spans vary across economies. The analysis in this report covers those 29 economies (Brazil, Canada, EU-22, India, Japan, the Philippines, the UK and the US) with the most comprehensive asset and time coverage. These 29 economies account for approximately 57 percent of world GDP in nominal terms and around 45 percent on a purchasing power parity basis. Active work is ongoing with partners and Member States to expand the country coverage, notably to Austria, China, Egypt, Ireland, Morocco, the Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Türkiye.
Measurement gaps: Despite intangible investment’s importance in driving innovation, productivity and economic growth, understanding of its size, composition and impact remains limited due to measurement challenges. The “non-physical” nature of intangible assets makes them intrinsically hard to measure and report. Many intangible asset types, such as brands or design, are not recognized as investment under national accounting frameworks, leading to more than 60 percent being unmeasured (figure 14). The WIPO-LBS Partnership addresses these measurement gaps by producing both annual and quarterly intangible investment estimates in a timely manner, with 2025 data available in July 2026.
The measurement framework: The Global INTAN-Invest Database follows the national accounts framework proposed by Corrado, Hulten and Sichel (2005, 2009), covering both unmeasured and measured intangible assets (figure A.1).
