Secured Lending In Intellectual Property

"Secured financing in intellectual property is a rapidly evolving area of the law as intellectual property becomes the core asset in many industries. Secured Lending in Intellectual Property, 2nd Edition serves as a guide to best practices in this financing segment by examining the commercial and legal context of intellectual property in commercial transactions as well as financing vehicles and procedures, and the associated commercial and legal risks. The scope of this new edition has been significantly expanded and revised to cover all types of intellectual property, including copyright, patents, trademarks, trade secrets and domain names...The scope of this second edition has been significantly expanded and revised to include the extensive number of decisions that have been released since 2006 as well as a more comprehensive review of the 2009 amendments to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act that relate to intellectual property."-- Résumé de l'éditeur.

This text thoroughly examines both the practical and theoretical issues involved in using intellectual property for collateral for corporate financing. With contributions from 18 leading intellectual property experts, it provides theoretical and policy analysis for Canada (including a definitive analysis of Quebec Civil Code theory and practice), the U.K. and the EU, the U.S.A. and Australia.

Economic development increasingly depends to a large extent on innovation. Innovation is generally covered by intellectual property (IP) rights and usually requires extensive funding. This book focuses on IP and debt financing as a tool to meet this demand. This book clarifies the situation of the use of IP as collateral in practice through a survey conducted in Japan on IP and debt financing. Various obstacles in the proper use IP and debt financing are identified, and some projects to facilitate its use are illustrated. IP and debt on a global scale, either by attracting foreign lenders or by collateralizing foreign IP rights, needs appropriate private international laws. This book analyzes such regulations in which the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) has worked, paying due attention to the law of finance and insolvency law, as well as IP laws. However, further analysis is needed to identify under what conditions such solutions would show optimal effects. This book offers comprehensive analysis from an economic point of view.

This book discusses the main legal and economic challenges to the creation and enforcement of security rights in intellectual property and explores possible avenues of reform, such as more specific rules for security in IP rights and better coordination between intellectual property law and secured transactions law. In the context of business financing, intellectual property rights are still only reluctantly used as collateral, and on a small scale. If they are used at all, it is mostly done in the form of a floating charge or some other “all-asset” security right. The only sector in which security rights in intellectual property play a major role, at least in some jurisdictions, is the financing of movies. On the other hand, it is virtually undisputed that security rights in intellectual property could be economically valuable, or even crucial, for small and medium-sized enterprises – especially for start-ups, which are often very innovative and creative, but have limited access to corporate financing and must rely on capital markets (securitization, capital market). Therefore, they need to secure bank loans, yet lack their own traditional collateral, such as land.

"Secured credit is an efficient form of lending that, when implemented in a proper legal and institutional framework, can reduce transaction costs associated with borrowing and thus stimulate economic activity...Today, with the growing importance of intellectual property, it is not surprising that that there is mounting pressure to improve the framework for securing loans with intellectual property rights (IPRs). Enterprises in the technology sector would not be the only ones to benefit from this reform. Any modern enterprise, from manufacturing to the service sector, holds significant intellectual property assets, ranging from business software to licence rights. This report examines the legal and institutional reforms needed to facilitate IPR-secured lending." -- from the Executive Sumamry. p. vii.

The overall objective of the UNCITRAL Legislative Guide on Secured Transactions (the Guide) is to promote low-cost credit by enhancing the availability of secured credit. In line with this objective, the Supplement on Security Rights in Intellectual Property (the Supplement) is intended to make credit more available and at a lower cost to intellectual property owners and other intellectual property rights holders, thus enhancing the value of intellectual property rights as security for credit. The Supplement, however, seeks to achieve that objective without interfering with fundamental policies of law relating to intellectual property.