I recently purchased a book published in Singapore entitled “Security Interests in Intellectual Property” (Editor: Toshiyuki Kono).
The book is the result of various contributions on the topics of intellectual property and finance. It aims to “contribute to the development of debates on how intellectual property could contribute to the finance of its holder.” (T. Kono, page v). It includes a chapter from Spyridon Bazinas (who authored a chapter in my book) on the United Nations Commission on International Trade Laws’ contribution to intellectual property finance law.
Janice Denoncourt, Senior Lecturer in Law at Nottingham Law School in the UK wrote a very comprehensive chapter on IP debt finance and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The chapter reveals some key international initiatives facilitating the expansion of IP debt financing for IP-rich SMEs. The chapter explores IP financing programs and developments in the UK, Europe and in Asia. Through this analysis, a notable conclusion of the chapter is the importance of collaboration between government policy-makers and commercial lenders to creating a systemic change in IP finance. The author supports that government policy-makers can encourage SME-borrowers to “manage, capture and disclose” intellectual property information at the outset of a loan application and to drive lenders to become IP “information demanders”, ie. use this information in their credit decisions. The author also prompts lenders to develop “ ‘IP-backed Lending’ policies to provide a blueprint for lending decisions”. Of course, in doing so, IP-backed lending must comply with existing capital adequacy requirements.
I highly recommend this book to those interested in gaining an international perspective on IP debt finance.
