Japan had a 119.5 billion yen deficit in the external balance of revenues and expenditures in licensing regarding intellectual property rights such as patents and trademarks in 2002, according to a survey released Thursday by the Japan Patent Office.

Carried out last October, the first survey of its kind by the office targeted 16,093 firms, public organizations and individuals, of whom 6,616 responded, an official at the office said.

The combined income of the surveyed Japanese firms from such licensing came to 214.4 billion yen, while their expenditures amounted to 333.9 billion yen. The figures exclude transactions within group firms.

"This deficit shows that Japan does not yet possess a sufficient amount of technologies that can be sold to other countries," the official said.

Of the 119.5 billion yen combined licensing deficit, about 70 billion yen was with the United States.

By contrast, Japan had a surplus of about 87 billion yen with other parts of Asia, according to the survey.

The U.S. accounted for roughly 70 percent of all lawsuits lodged by foreign firms against Japanese companies over intellectual property rights. Of the U.S. suits, about 90 percent were claims about patents, the official said.

The office plans to conduct the survey annually from now on, he said.