Zhang Yan Chinese Member of the Party Committee and Vice President of the Hefei Central Branch of the People's Bank of China
By combing the experience of international and domestic intellectual property pledge financing, this paper focuses on the comparative analysis of the practice of intellectual property pledge financing in Anhui and Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, analyzes the issues that deserve attention and puts forward relevant suggestions, in order to further enhance the ability of anhui financial service technology innovation, accelerate integration into the Yangtze River Delta, and promote the high-quality development of scientific and technological innovation and economy in the Yangtze River Delta.
Source | Contemporary Financier Magazine, No. 10, 2021
The Yangtze River Delta region is rich in innovation resources and a large number of science and technology innovation enterprises, and the development of intellectual property pledge financing is an important means to alleviate the financing difficulties of small and medium-sized science and technology innovation enterprises, promote the transformation of intellectual property rights from "intellectual property" to "assets", and also implement the integration strategy and innovation-driven development strategy of the Yangtze River Delta and accelerate the construction of a scientific and technological power.
1 International and domestic experience in intellectual property pledge financing
International experience
In the process of developing intellectual property pledge financing, we have given full play to the role of the visible hand of the government and the invisible hand of the market, mobilized the enthusiasm of all parties involved in the main body, and gradually explored and formed a relatively mature practical experience, which is worth learning and thinking.
The first is to effectively give play to the role of government regulation and control. In the process of intellectual property pledge financing, the government can establish a good communication platform between financial institutions and enterprises to achieve the purpose of effective guarantee and risk reduction. For example, in the process of intellectual property pledge financing in Japan, the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) with government background is an important policy financial institution supporting the development of high-tech enterprises, and it arranges a special appraisal agency to conduct value assessment and asset review of the pledge to determine the loan amount, and the Japan Credit Guarantee Association, which is jointly established by the government and financial institutions, provides credit guarantee for corporate financing.
The second is to establish and improve the intellectual property trading mechanism. As an intangible asset, the realization of the circulation of intellectual property rights and the activation of the trading market by market-oriented means are of great significance for improving the effect of intellectual property pledge financing for small and medium-sized science and technology innovation enterprises. For example, the Korea Technology Trading Center (KTTC) established in South Korea is a professional place to carry out intellectual property pledge financing. The technology trading center implements a member access system, and only financial institutions and appraisal institutions licensed by the government can carry out intellectual property pledge financing business. The subject matter used by enterprises to carry out intellectual property financing is uniformly managed in the technology trading center, and the government supervises it on the KTTC platform.
The third is to build a scientific risk sharing compensation mechanism. There are many participants in intellectual property pledge financing, and the establishment of a risk sharing compensation mechanism for multi-party cooperation and shared rights and responsibilities is conducive to mobilizing the enthusiasm of all parties involved and relieving worries. For example, in order to support the development of ip pledge financing for small and medium-sized enterprises and reduce financing risks, the federal government, state governments, guarantee agencies and commercial banks share the risk loss according to the ratio of 39:26:28:7. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is responsible for acting as a credit platform between small businesses and banks, providing related assessments, credit guarantees, post-loan management and other services, when the enterprise can not repay the loan on time, the government compensates according to a certain proportion, and the financial institutions share the risk.
Domestic Exploration
Since 2009, the State Intellectual Property Office has successively carried out pilot projects of intellectual property pledge financing, investment and financing services and national intellectual property investment and financing comprehensive pilot zones in the country. At the same time, the State Intellectual Property Office, the People's Bank of China, the Ministry of Finance, the Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and other departments have also issued a number of policy documents to support the development of intellectual property financing. According to the data released by the State Intellectual Property Office, the amount of intellectual property pledge financing (including patent rights and trademark rights) in China in 2020 is 211.02 billion yuan. In the practice of exploring intellectual property pledge financing, several typical models have gradually formed in China, such as local governments, intellectual property operating institutions, insurance institutions, and commercial banks.
Local government-led model. This model is mainly led by local governments, by providing relevant fee subsidies, incentives and risk compensation for enterprises, assessment institutions, financial institutions, etc., to guide market entities to actively participate in intellectual property pledge financing, the degree of marketization is low, and the government is the main risk bearer. Among the top ten provinces in the national intellectual property pledge financing (including patent pledge and trademark pledge) notified by the State Intellectual Property Office in 2020, local governments such as Guangdong, Jiangsu, Sichuan, and Anhui have fulfilled their main responsibilities in terms of risk compensation or discount and incentive policies (see Table 1).
Ip operating institution-led model. In this model, the intellectual property operation institution takes the lead in cooperating with relevant financial institutions to carry out intellectual property pledge financing services, innovates financing products and risk diversification mechanisms, and provides one-stop services for enterprises, and the intellectual property operation institutions become the leading party in the pledge financing and assume the main risk subrogation responsibility. Taking the "Zhirongbao" pure intellectual property pledge loan launched by Beijing Intellectual Property Operation and Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Beijing IP") as a typical representative, Beijing IP relies on the resource advantages of Zhongguancun to realize the joint participation of banking, guarantee, insurance, assessment, investment, government risk compensation and private capital, and has built a service model of "intellectual property operation + investment and loan linkage". At the same time, Beijing IP Innovation launched the "Zhirongbao" project to deal with the liability risk of the insurance company centralized insurance and payment of premiums, the implementation of risk capping, enhance the participation of financial institutions (see Table 2).
Insurance institutions dominate the model. This model is mainly that insurance institutions directly provide funds for enterprise intellectual property pledge financing or assume the main risk subrogation responsibility by providing insurance products, reducing the risk of bank loans. For example, the "Suzhou PICC Model" directly uses the insurance funds of insurance companies for intellectual property pledge financing, realizing the direct docking of insurance funds with the real economy. The "Qingdao model" introduces insurance institutions to resolve bank loan risks, and insurance institutions, guarantee institutions and commercial banks share risk compensation in a 6:2:2 ratio (see Table 3).
Commercial banks (microfinance companies) dominate the model. This model is a direct pledge financing led by the innovation of commercial banks (microfinance companies), with the highest degree of marketization, and commercial banks (microfinance companies) are the main risk bearers. For example, Beijing has successively launched products such as "Zhanyetong" small enterprise intellectual property rights and trademark exclusive right pledge loans, "cultural and creative industry copyright guarantee loans" and other products, when risks occur, banks and other intermediaries mainly bear the loss compensation. Shanghai established the Pudong Science and Technology Financing Guarantee Company, and the government no longer intervened in the screening of guarantee projects, and gradually transitioned from the early government-led to market-oriented operation. In addition, Chengdu has also innovatively launched a financing model in which small loan companies provide pure intellectual property direct pledge financing for science and technology enterprises (see Table 4).
2 Anhui intellectual property pledge financing practice
In recent years, Anhui has conscientiously implemented the concept of innovative development, focused on creating a source of scientific and technological innovation with important influence, attached great importance to the work of intellectual property pledge financing, and successively formulated and issued the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" Anhui Province Intellectual Property Protection and Application Plan, "Several Policies to Support Scientific and Technological Innovation", "Anhui Province", "Implementation Plan for the Implementation of patent transformation special plan to help small and medium-sized enterprises innovate and develop" and other documents, and taken multiple measures to promote intellectual property pledge financing, achieving positive results.
Pay attention to departmental linkage. Close communication and contact between the competent intellectual property departments, financial management departments, financial institutions and colleges and universities, regularly hold meetings to promote the work of intellectual property pledge financing, actively carry out investigations on the financing needs of intellectual property pledge enterprises, strengthen the protection and application of intellectual property rights, and promote the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. Give full play to the role of the provincial government's "four free and one service" double thousand project platform, and continuously optimize the development environment of intellectual property finance by holding intellectual property pledge financing training courses and intellectual property pledge financing bank-enterprise matchmaking meetings, and help the construction of "three places and one district".
Focus on local practices. Support the construction of Hefei National Intellectual Property Demonstration City and the pilot cities of Bengbu City and Wuhu City for Intellectual Property Pledge Financing. Hefei city through the discount subsidy to reduce the financing costs of enterprises, the enterprise in the form of patent rights pledge loan financing one-time subsidies, up to 200,000 yuan; encourage intermediary institutions to carry out guarantee assessment and other services, regularly hold intermediary agency work scheduling meetings. Bengbu City issued the "Several Policies and Measures for Promoting the High-quality Development of Intellectual Property Rights in Bengbu City", which gives subsidies to enterprises that use pledge loans to give subsidies to discounted interest rates; establishes a joint service agency for intellectual property pledge financing, and jointly holds a bank-enterprise matchmaking meeting with the Bengbu Central Branch of the People's Bank of China to promote bank-enterprise docking cooperation. Wuhu City has formulated the "Several Policy Provisions on The Promotion of Industrial Innovation and Development by Intellectual Property Rights in Wuhu City", which subsidizes 50% of the total loan interest and patent appraisal fee for enterprises that use patent rights pledge loans to finance and return them on schedule; for enterprises purchasing patent rights pledge loan guarantee insurance, the insurance premium shall not exceed 5%, and the insurance institution shall be given 50% of the premium subsidy for risk compensation.
Pay attention to financial power. The Hefei Central Branch of the People's Bank of China took the opportunity of creating the Yangtze River Delta Science and Technology Innovation Financial Reform Pilot Zone to play a guiding role in monetary and credit policies, encourage financial institutions to explore and develop new models of intellectual property financing, and actively promote intellectual property pledge financing. Work with the intellectual property department to sort out the directory of high-tech growth enterprises, rely on the provincial intellectual property trading center to carry out intellectual property assessment and high-value patent evaluation, and guide commercial banks to do a good job of docking. Study and explore the establishment of an intellectual property financial exchange, and promote the implementation of the intellectual property "technology flow" financing plan for the Anhui Branch of CCB. In 2020, Anhui Province's intellectual property pledge financing was 1199 and 10.132 billion yuan, ranking fifth in the country; among them, 906 patent rights pledge loans were 7.912 billion yuan, ranking fifth in the country; trademark rights pledge loans were 293 and 2.22 billion yuan, ranking second in the country.
3 Issues of concern
In general, intellectual property pledge financing has not yet been opened in key links such as risk sharing, banks' concerns have not been dispelled, and related businesses are difficult to promote on a large scale.
The difficulty of disposal and realization leads to the "alienation" of intellectual property pledge financing. Enterprise intellectual property rights have the characteristics of exclusivity, must be combined with specific production equipment, processes, management team, in order to achieve specific value, once the loan risk, the value of the collateral will be greatly discounted when disposing, commercial banks will face disposal problems. In order to diversify the risk of disposal, intellectual property pledge financing loans have gradually developed into two models: one is "intellectual property rights + other collateral", using the collateral value of other collateral to buffer the risk of intellectual property disposal; the other is "intellectual property rights + credit", although intellectual property pledge, but in the risk control link, it is essentially approved according to credit loans, and both models are essentially intellectual property rights as a means of credit enhancement, rather than pure intellectual property pledge financing.
The risk sharing mechanism of intellectual property pledge financing has not yet been "solved". In the final analysis, the low recognition of intellectual property pledge loans by commercial banks is due to the difficulty of risk control, realization and disposal of pledge loans, and the risk prevention and sharing compensation mechanism is not yet perfect. In the process of promoting the pilot project of intellectual property pledge financing, local governments are mostly inclined to compensate for the policy incentive through interest subsidies, which is essentially to alleviate the "expensive financing" problem of some science and technology enterprises, and the problem of "financing difficulties" of science and technology enterprises has not really been solved. At the same time, although some cities have established government-led intellectual property risk compensation funds, due to limited financial resources and small risk compensation, they have not fundamentally solved the pain points of risk sharing.
The asymmetry of rights and responsibilities makes the intellectual property pledge financing have the hidden danger of "arbitrage". In the process of promoting intellectual property pledge financing, some participating entities carry out policy arbitrage through relevant channels. In terms of enterprises, some science and technology innovation enterprises apply for intellectual property pledge loans for the purpose of obtaining policy subsidies, and collude with appraisal institutions to inflate valuations, resulting in "moral hazard". In terms of appraisal institutions, the current market lacks a unified and perfect intellectual property appraisal system, and a small number of appraisal institutions have useless appraisal responsibilities in order to seize the market, resulting in a harsh appraisal competitive environment. On the government side, in some pilot cities, in order to promote business and complete the task indicators, the intellectual property management department is not strict in terms of rewards and compensation, and the identification is loose; while the audit department determines that it is too strict in the post-audit and leads to poor business advancement.
4 Policy recommendations
Although Anhui Province's intellectual property pledge financing work has achieved certain results, compared with other two provinces and one city in the Yangtze River Delta, there are still problems such as the total amount of financing to be expanded, the financing structure to be optimized, and the supporting support policies to be improved. In the next step, Anhui Province should fully grasp the integration strategy of the Yangtze River Delta, take the opportunity of shenchuang yangtze river delta science and technology innovation financial reform pilot zone and the construction of the yangtze river delta science and technology innovation community, benchmark Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, adhere to the problem orientation, make full use of high-quality financial resources, innovate financial services, and build a diversified risk prevention and sharing compensation mechanism of "multi-party participation, each fulfilling its responsibilities, and equal rights and responsibilities" for intellectual property pledge financing, form a balance of rights and responsibilities, and mobilize the enthusiasm of all parties involved.
Strengthen communication and coordination, and establish a collaborative working mechanism for intellectual property finance. Drawing on Shanghai's experience, the intellectual property management department will take the lead in establishing the intellectual property financial service alliance, and the relevant government departments such as finance, auditing, taxation, financial management departments, financial institutions, intellectual property operation service institutions, and legal institutions shall be the member units to provide policy exchange, business coordination, information sharing, value assessment, legal risk control and other services for intellectual property financial services, and establish a collaborative work mechanism. Organize key banks and intellectual property departments to sign strategic cooperation agreements. Through holding joint meetings, seminar salons, financing matchmaking meetings, etc., we will explore the construction of a full-chain, one-stop intellectual property financial service platform with "counseling before lending, choice in lending, monitoring in lending, and subsidies after lending".
Strengthen financial innovation and build an intellectual property pledge financing service system. The first is to set up a franchise organization. Encourage commercial banks to set up science and technology branches, cultivate account managers and risk control teams familiar with the characteristics of science and technology enterprises, and support business development through separate credit plans, special assessment incentives, etc. The second is to innovate financial products and services. Under the inter-provincial (municipal) joint credit mechanism in the Yangtze River Delta, promote cross-regional intellectual property financing services. Support commercial banks in issuing packaged portfolio loans for intellectual property rights such as patents, trademark rights, and copyrights, and strive to create conditions for commercial banks to handle the pilot project of patent pledge registration online. Promote strategic cooperation between commercial banks and INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY-intensive industrial parks, introduce multi-party resources such as park management committees, and form constraints on lending enterprises. The third is to improve internal risk management. Commercial banks should strengthen pre-loan early warning and post-loan tracking management of intellectual property pledge financing loans, closely track the financial status of enterprises and the transformation of intellectual property rights, conduct periodic assessments of the value of intellectual property rights, and take timely remedial measures for unfavorable situations that may produce risks.
Strengthen risk constraints and build a diversified risk prevention and sharing compensation mechanism. The first is to explore the intellectual property pledge financing model of "negotiated valuation and bad debt sharing" between commercial banks and appraisal institutions to form a balance of interests. The second is to explore a constraint mechanism for the use of intellectual property rights of science and technology enterprises, and after the loan default, restrict the use of the trademark rights and patent rights pledged by the enterprises, forcing enterprises to be self-disciplined and trustworthy. The third is to explore the integration of intellectual property pledge assessment and guarantee. Qualified policy-based science and technology guarantee institutions or insurance companies shall assess the value of the pledge and provide loan guarantees accordingly. The fourth is to integrate the special support funds of the central government and the local government to jointly establish a risk compensation fund, and the participating entities such as the risk compensation fund, commercial banks, guarantee companies, insurance companies, and intellectual property assessment institutions shall bear the compensatory liability in accordance with the agreed proportion. The non-performing rate of intellectual property pledge financing of banking institutions shall be regulated and tolerated within 3 percentage points (inclusive) higher than that of their own loans. The fifth is to improve the subsidy mechanism, expand the main body, scope and amount of subsidies, and establish a positive incentive compatibility mechanism.
Strengthen the construction of platforms and optimize the business environment for intellectual property pledge financing. The first is to improve the intellectual property evaluation system. Strengthen the linkage with Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the government will take the lead in establishing an intellectual property valuation institution database and an expert talent pool, and formulate a relatively unified and standardized intellectual property value assessment standard system in the Yangtze River Delta. The second is to build a comprehensive service platform for intellectual property rights. Strengthen cooperation with Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, actively participate in the establishment of a dynamic database of intellectual property pledge financing projects for enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta region and a bank intellectual property financial product information database, form a cross-regional cooperation mechanism and an information co-construction and sharing mechanism, and promote multi-party cooperation. The third is to rely on the Anhui Innovation Pavilion to explore the establishment of a national intellectual property trading center and accelerate the construction of the Anhui United Technology Property Rights Exchange. Participate in the construction of a multi-level complementary trading market system such as the intellectual property trading market in the Yangtze River Delta region and the intellectual property trading market in different professional fields, and help the intellectual property flow to change.
This article originated from contemporary financiers