WIPO launches action plan to find the ‘dark matter’ driving the economy – intangible assets

WIPO, the UN agency for intellectual property, has launched its action plan to mainstream IP-based finance, with a major event at its Geneva headquarters.

The High-level conversation on unlocking intangible asset finance event (click for video) took place on November 1st 2022. It was attended by around 700 delegates in person and virtually.

The aim of the event was to kick-start a conversation about how policies and attitudes need to be changed to allow companies, particularly innovative ones, to use their IP and intangibles assets to raise funding. WIPO says it’s time to move IP-based finance “from the margins to the mainstream.”

WIPO used the opportunity to launch its Action Plan to Unlock Intangible Asset Finance, which WIPO Director General Daren Tang said will involve stakeholders around the world, including regulators, financiers, investors, insurers, financial institutions, development banks, accountants, valuers and others.

WIPO and Intangible Asset Finance:

Moving Intangible Asset Finance from the Margins to the Mainstream

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In his keynote introduction to the conference, DG Tang said that while estimates put the total value of IP and intangible assets globally at US$70 trillion:

"Intangible assets are like the dark matter of our financial and economic world - mysterious, largely invisible, even if they are now exerting a huge and increasingly visible influence on our companies and economies."

DG Tang added that this “is not healthy for our most innovative entrepreneurs and enterprises, who need to unlock new avenues of financing for growth, using their most valuable assets, and especially in times when money supply has shrunk substantially. It is not healthy for our regulatory, financial, accounting and valuation frameworks that are not able to adequately understand, measure and analyse what is increasingly the key asset of enterprises they regulate and support. And it is not healthy for our economies and financial markets, when the understanding of the role that intangible assets play in trade, finance, economic growth remains unclear.”

He outlined WIPO’s strategy for its Action Plan to Unlock Intangible Asset Finance. This will see WIPO:

• Raising the profile of intangible asset finance via events and the creation of expert groups to ‘deep dive’ into relevant issues;

• Conducting research to generate evidence about IP-based finance and how it is being used around the world, which has already seen the publication of country reports covering Singapore and Japan (Switzerland and the UK are next);

• And creating practical support for borrowers and lenders, including building a new finance toolkit to help all parties communicate more easily.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKgrLX1gPg8