On December 30, 2021, the press conference named "Yangtze River-the first phase of Special Project of Asset Support to Intellectual Property secured by Zhongguancun" was held in China Technology Exchange (aka Beijing Intellectual Property Exchange). As the first intellectual property securitization project focusing on patent licensing in Beijing, the securities worth 1 billion yuan is approved, of which the value of initial issue of securities reaches 337 million yuan. This project not only provides innovative solutions for 15 high-tech enterprises to address financing problems using intellectual property rights, but also makes a positive exploration for the construction of "two districts" in Beijing.

  In 2020, General Secretary Xi Jinping announced that Beijing would have full backing to build a "National Comprehensive Demonstration Zone for further opening up of the service industry" and a "pilot free trade Zone," in which the intellectual property is one of the four elements to be emphasized. The first 15 high-tech enterprises beneficial from this project comprise 5 enterprises focusing on energy conservation and environmental protection, 7 focusing on the new generation of information technology, 2 focusing on medicine and healthcare, and 1 focusing on modern agriculture, covering low-carbon economy, digital economy, health care, and other advanced and sophisticated industries demanding strong ability of intellectual property. In addition, next batch of enterprises in the support list of this project further include 4 innovative SMEs with high expertise and strong research and development ability.

  The securitization of intellectual property is a method using the stable cash flow produced by the "intellectual property assets" of the enterprise as the basis to raise capital by issuing securities. It can effectively solve the financing problems of innovative enterprises by broadening their financing way, and it gives full play to IP rights hold by those high-tech enterprises, through which the enterprises could further increase investment in R&D and speed up the innovation and development.

  In the past two years, governments in many places have promoted intellectual property securitization projects, giving policy support to high-tech enterprises with strong IP capability to help them obtain financing using intellectual property with lower cost. By the end of October 2021, a total of 44 IP securitized products had been issued on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, raising 11.1 billion yuan, according to the statistics of the CNIPA.

  Although the intellectual property securitization projects have been gaining great momentum, potential risks should be paid attention to. Compared with the stable cash flow of traditional enterprises, the basic assets of innovative enterprises using for intellectual property securitization are based on the IP rights, which are characterized by instability. Policy changes, default of underlying enterprises and many other factors could affect the value of certain IP rights. Therefore, much more attention should be paid to solve the problems, such as how to improve evaluation system for intellectual property, how to realize the reliability and stability of income, and how to design a better system to control risks, to further promote the securitization of intellectual property in a right way.