March 19, 2024

The UK’s Minister for AI and Intellectual Property, Viscount Camrose, and the WIPO Director General Daren Tang, presented the Country Perspectives Report ‘The United Kingdom’s Journey’, at a launch event at the Houses of Parliament. The report finds that UK banks are beginning to engage with Intellectual Property (IP) backed lending and provides an insight on how greater access to IP-backed finance could help innovators and creators leverage their IP to scale and grow.

The WIPO Director General stated:

Intellectual property is not just a legal right or a business catalyst, but also a financial asset. IP financing will unlock new paths for enterprises to grow, but still feels unfamiliar to many key stakeholders. It is therefore time for us to move this conversation beyond IP specialists and experts to get those in finance, investment, accountancy and valuation involved in moving this piece forward together. IP offices are no longer just IP registries but important builders of a country’s innovation ecosystem and will play a central role as catalysts for IP finance.  

This is why I strongly welcome the UK IPO’s firm commitment to work with WIPO and key stakeholders within the UK and internationally to transform IP financing from exotic to mainstream. 

The joint collaboration between WIPO and the IPO, marks another step in WIPO’s work program to help improve policy and industry insight into the viability and practices of IP finance globally. The UK report contributes to a growing body of evidence on the opportunities and challenges in moving IP finance into the mainstream.  

Read the press release here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/report-launched-into-uks-ip-backed-finance-landscape

Download the report here: https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo-pub-rn2023-42-en-country-perspectives-the-united-kingdom-s-journey.pdf