The frustration of holding patents yet being unable to secure loans due to a lack of collateral has long been a shared "growing pain" for many small and medium-sized technology enterprises in Liaoning. A new approach has now emerged to tackle this problem.

Recently, the Provincial Intellectual Property Office, together with the Provincial Department of Finance, the Provincial Local Financial Management Bureau, and the Liaoning Branch of the People's Bank of China, jointly issued the "Several Measures of Liaoning Province on Intellectual Property Pledge Financing to Support Enterprise Innovation and Development," rolling out 11 specific measures covering the entire chain of intellectual property pledge financing. The measures aim to address the difficulties technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises face in obtaining financing due to insufficient collateral, and to help intellectual property transform from an "intangible asset" into real capital.

In terms of strengthening the supply of high-quality intellectual property and value assessment, the province has explicitly proposed building a provincial-level high-value patent cultivation center and continuously carrying out patent navigation services to improve patent quality at the source. At the same time, a provincial list of intellectual property pledge financing products will be compiled and released, and a dynamically updated database of demand projects will be established to enable targeted matching of financing needs.

To address valuation challenges, the province will strictly implement national standards, encourage financial institutions to develop intelligent valuation models, support the use of internal assessments to determine asset value for intellectual property pledge loans under 10 million yuan per transaction, and promote a comprehensive credit model combining "intellectual property plus credit."

To effectively reduce lenders' concerns, the province has further improved risk-sharing and guarantee support mechanisms. The policy clearly calls for giving full play to the role of the provincial intellectual property pledge financing risk compensation fund, providing compensation according to standards for non-performing loans issued by partner banks, and guiding cities to improve local risk-sharing mechanisms based on their own conditions. On guarantee support, for technology innovation-oriented small and medium-sized enterprises and policy-based financing guarantee business with a single guarantee amount of 5 million yuan or less that uses intellectual property pledges as counter-guarantees, government-backed financing guarantee institutions will lower guarantee fee rates in accordance with regulations.

In terms of enriching financial product offerings and broadening the scope of acceptable pledges, financial institutions are guided to incorporate enterprises' ownership and use of intellectual property as an important basis in loan review and assessment. Banks are supported in bundling patent rights, trademark exclusive rights, and other collateral for combined financing, and exploring the inclusion of geographical indications, plant variety rights, data rights, and integrated circuit layout designs into the scope of acceptable pledges. Meanwhile, insurance institutions are encouraged to develop new products covering the entire chain of intellectual property creation, application, and protection, and to vigorously promote mature insurance types such as infringement liability insurance and patent enforcement insurance. In addition, the province will encourage financial institutions to explore business models such as intellectual property asset-backed securities (ABS) or asset-backed notes (ABN).

To improve service efficiency, the province will continue to optimize pledge registration services, provide convenient services such as on-site and centralized processing for batch business, and support more banking financial institutions in offering fully paperless processing.