SEOUL, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's economy posted the second-lowest deficit in the intellectual property right balance last year, keeping an improvement in the intangible property trade, central bank data showed Tuesday.
The intellectual property right balance logged a deficit of 1.99 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, the lowest except a deficit of 1.66 billion dollars tallied in the previous year, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).
The intangible property balance continued to improve from a deficit of 4 billion dollars in 2015.
The deficit in industrial property rights, including patent and trademark, amounted to 2.31 billion dollars last year, but the copyright balance recorded a surplus of 450 million dollars.
Big corporations posted a surplus of 20 million dollars in the intellectual property rights balance, marking the first surplus since the bank began compiling the data in 2010.
Both manufacturers and services companies logged deficits of 1.32 billion dollars and 720 million dollars each last year.
South Korea's trade deficit in the intangible property was the biggest with the United States, which was set at 4.66 billion dollars in 2017.
It was followed by the deficit with Japan at 520 million dollars and the one with Germany at 420 million dollars.
