New policy opens up financing floodgates

Altogether 267 enterprises in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area have benefited from a new policy that allows them to apply for bank loans using patents, trademarks and copyrights as collateral, the district’s intellectual property bureau said in late August.

They are all beneficiaries of a financial card issued by a group of local bankers and a technology financing service provider in 2015 — the first of its kind in the country — which facilitates IP-collateralized financing services.

Supported by the Pudong IP bureau, the card was upgraded in 2016 to include more financial services.

Card owners in the district had obtained a total of 920 million yuan ($140 million) via the financing services by June.

“The loan limits for such businesses are usually 5 million yuan, depending on the number of intellectual property assets they own,” said Ye Zongxiong, deputy director of the general administrative office of the bureau.

Wang Yu, president of Shanghai Yuking Water Soluble Material Tech — which sells its products to medicine producers in more than 100 countries — said the innovative policy has solved the problem of insufficient development funds for the company since the beginning of 2015.

“We are a high-tech business with limited fixed assets, as we pour more than half of our profits into research and development,” Wang said.

“We used to face challenges in applying for loans, but last year we obtained a loan of 2 million yuan and the credit line has risen to 7 million yuan this year, thanks to the bank’s high appraisal of our trademarks and patents,” he said.

The policy is among the successes brought by a pilot reform beginning in 2015 in Pudong, where the district bureau is responsible for the administrative management of all of patents, trademarks, and copyrights, as well as their application and approval. Previously, different government authorities were responsible for each of the processes.

“The practice, which abides by international conventions, will be expanded nationwide after proving effective and efficient in the district,” said Lyu Guoqiang, director of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration.

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