## IPTT Inaugural Meetings (February 21, 2020)—Summary of Discussions

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### Opening remarks and agenda discussion
- The Joint Intellectual Property Products Task Team (IPTT) took note of a written comment from the Statistics Netherlands highlighting the need to focus on conceptual issues given the time frame of the task team.
- IPTT members indicated the task team should concentrate on intellectual property products (IPPs) cross border issues, while taking the lead where conceptual issues overlap with other subgroups such as the Inter Secretariat Working Group on National Accounts (ISWGNA) globalization subgroup.
- The IPTT will report to the International Monetary Fund’s Committee on Balance of Payments (BOPCOM) and the Advisory Expert Group on National Accounts (AEG).
- IPTT members agreed that most issues in the work program introduction are relevant, including:
  - relocation of IPPs across borders,
  - global production arrangements by factory less goods producers,
  - payments for “knowledge-based capital”.
- High priority issues were identified as:
  - relocation of cross-border IPPs,
  - ownership of IPPs.
- An emerging issue was the treatment of intra multinational enterprises (MNEs) flows of IPP patents.
- Members discussed the relevance of IPPs data and data reporting; there was overall agreement on relevance but concern that addressing these issues could extend beyond the current IPTT timeframe.

### Actions agreed (opening items)
- IPTT members to report to BOPCOM and AEG on the results of the work of the task team (October 2020).
- IPTT members to give priority to issues of relocation of cross-border IPPs and ownership of IPPs in the preparation of the IPPs report.
- IPTT members to include data issues (including data reporting) in the IPTT report to raise awareness for future work in this area (during the preparation of the IPPs report).

### IPTT work program and timetable — discussions
- IPTT members will prepare and circulate assessments of current methodological guidelines on IPPs and share various documents they prepared on IPPs issues, including the paper for the Russia country case prepared for the last BOPCOM, with the Chair.
- The IPTT Chair will prepare an issue note and a list of questions to gather information about challenges faced by countries represented on the IPTT in the collection and compilation of IPPs data.
- The IMF noted a conference organized by the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth in August 2020 with a special plenary session on the update of the manuals covering three subgroups (globalization, digitalization and well-being/sustainability) of the Task Force on the SNA Research Agenda, presenting an opportunity to raise IPPs issues and obtain feedback from users and compilers of macroeconomic statistics.
- The IMF indicated an initial draft issue paper prepared by Eurostat for the globalization subgroup on economic ownership and recording of IPPs was in limited circulation and would be shared with the Chair; it could serve as a brief summary of issues and a review of recording options considered in the existing literature.
- IPTT members stressed that statistical compilation feasibility should be a key anchor for methodological development and implementation.
- The workplan and timeline items were accepted; the next virtual conference (VC) was planned for early-May 2020, about a month after the issues paper circulation to allow members to prepare.

### Actions agreed (work program and timetable)
- IPTT members to share various documents they prepared on IPPs issues with the Chair, including country cases with challenges for the IPPs methodological standards implementation and the compilation of IIPs data (Mid-March 2020).
- IPTT Chair will share an IPPs issue note and the list of documents with all other members for review and comments; the issue note will include an inventory of relevant IPP cross-border issues and current country practices (End-March 2020).
- IPTT members will provide comments to the IPPs issue note (End-April 2020).
- Next IPTT virtual conference scheduled for Early-May 2020.
- IPTT members to raise IPPs issues during the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth meeting in August 2020, if possible, to obtain more feedback on challenges and practices (August 2020).

### Institutions represented
- OECD (Chair)
- EUROSTAT
- ECB
- Central Bank of Russia
- Central Statistics Office of Ireland
- IMF (secretariat)
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (did not attend but provided written comments)
- Statistic Netherlands (did not attend but provided written comments)
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (did not attend)

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/data/statistics/bpm6/iptt/iptt-inaurugal-meeting-minutes-february-21-2020.pdf_