China’s intellectual property insurance business has exceeded 100 billion.

　　◎ Our reporter Cao Xiuying

　　By the end of 2022, the national intellectual property insurance business has provided more than 110 billion yuan of risk protection for more than 46,000 patents, trademarks, geographical indications and integrated circuit layout designs of more than 28,000 enterprises. The first White Paper on the Development of Intellectual Property Insurance in China (2022) released on February 8th (hereinafter referred to as the White Paper) shows the transcripts of intellectual property insurance in China.

　　Intellectual property insurance refers to the insurance that the insurer undertakes to pay compensation for the economic losses caused by insurance accidents when the insured carries out intellectual property activities such as the creation, protection, application, management and service of intellectual property rights. Bai Jianfeng, director of China National Intellectual Property Administration Intellectual Property Development Research Center, said that China has started to explore patent insurance related work since 2011, and intellectual property insurance has been developing continuously. In 2015, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued "Several Opinions on Deepening the Reform of System and Mechanism and Accelerating the Implementation of Innovation-Driven Development Strategy", and put forward the deployment requirements of "accelerating the development of science and technology insurance and promoting the pilot of patent insurance" in the central document for the first time. Subsequently, various intellectual property insurance policies were continuously introduced, which greatly promoted the development of intellectual property insurance.

　　The white paper jointly issued by China National Intellectual Property Administration Intellectual Property Development Research Center and China People’s Property Insurance Co., Ltd. points out that China’s intellectual property insurance has covered almost all types of intellectual property, such as patents, trademarks, copyrights, geographical indications, layout design of integrated circuits, new plant varieties and trade secrets, covering all aspects of intellectual property creation, protection and application.

　　Jiang Caishi, vice president of PICC P&C Insurance in China, said that China’s intellectual property insurance provides risk protection for specialized and new enterprises, enriches channels for the transformation and application of intellectual property, and promotes the innovation ability of SMEs.

　　At the same time, the development of intellectual property insurance in China is also facing some challenges.

　　Hu Junjian, deputy director of China National Intellectual Property Administration Intellectual Property Development Research Center, analyzed that intellectual property is an intangible asset. Compared with tangible assets, the evaluation and disposal of intangible assets are more difficult and the potential risks are more uncertain. Compared with other intangible assets, the influencing factors of intellectual property value fluctuation are more diverse, including not only the technicality of intellectual property itself, but also industrial development, scientific and technological evolution, international trends and other factors, which are highly dependent on the intellectual property operation ability and external environment of the innovation subject. Therefore, the evaluation of intellectual property rights is more complicated than the evaluation of tangible assets, which requires more appraisers and needs more and richer data and information analysis support.

　　At the specific operational level, insurance companies also need to bear a higher "duty of care" than general property insurance in the process of product design and insurance review, and the risk of adverse selection is high. Developers need to accurately identify the potential value of intellectual property rights, realize the benefits of intellectual property rights transformation and application, and organically integrate intellectual property rights with insurance products, which puts forward higher requirements for insurance companies’ risk review and professional talent reserve.

　　Hu Junjian said that influenced by these factors, intellectual property rights can be used as the object of financial products, which requires higher quality and transformation value of intellectual property rights. Although the quality of intellectual property creation in China is constantly improving, there are still a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises whose intellectual property management is not standardized, and the value of intellectual property has not been fully stimulated and transformed. Judging from the current practice of intellectual property insurance, the coverage of all kinds of intellectual property insurance products still needs to be further expanded. Many market participants still don’t understand the role and significance of intellectual property insurance, and they are still used to adopting traditional risk retention methods, which limits the development of intellectual property insurance to some extent.

　　In view of these problems, the white paper suggests that we should constantly improve the working mechanism, innovate working methods, optimize risk prevention and control, and enrich insurance products and services. It is necessary to strengthen the coordination among all parties and strive to build a full-process service system for intellectual property insurance with inclusive attributes. It is necessary to continue to deepen the exploration of intellectual property value evaluation and improve the evaluation method and risk prevention and control level of intellectual property value. It is necessary to strengthen the capacity building of intellectual property insurance professional teams and institutions, carry out in-depth research and analysis of key needs and difficult issues, and promote the deeper integration and development of intellectual property and finance.