IP Dragon's Book Review: Invisible Gold in Asia

Professor David Llewelyn (King's College London and IP Academy, Singapore) wrote an exceptional book that will appeal to both laypeople and IP professionals. Although Invisible Gold in Asia does not aim to be a scholarly book (for example there are no footnotes), the book could not be written by a non-scholar. For laypeople the book lays out the intricacies of intellectual property rights and their relationships to wealth creation, a topic incredibly comprehensive and therefore almost unmanageable, in digestible parts. For the IP professionals the book is a treasure of anecdotes worth knowing and sketches the whole field of IP in Asia, and thereby giving some crucial context even to IP professionals, since most of them cover only some part of intellectual property rights, and their focus is often geographically limited. Professor Llewelyn's educational capabilities are charged by years of teaching a critical mass of students. Therefore when he touches upon a complex subject, he goes just deep enough into the matter to convey the essence of the subject. When you read the easy flowing book, you will notice that Professor Llewelyn not only wants to illuminate the obscure world of IP, but he has a message as well: basically he wants to wake up everybody inside and outside of Asia that IP, will be of crucial importance for Asia in the coming years. Professor Llewelyn rightly divides two markets for the world of IP: the USA and the rest of the world. But the role of Asia and the role of IP in Asia will become ever more important. And he tries to make the reader aware that IP rights are not mere liabilities, but they could be valuable assets. The book is structured in two parts. In part I Professor Llewelyn is going on a tour de force as he gives an overview of all intellectual property rights and their different characteristics. He can do this like no other, see here. In part II he gives describes the Asian IP landscape: Japan, the Little Dragons/Tigers (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Republic of Korea and Singapore), China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Vietnam, Bangladesh, Laos, Cambodia. My favorite chapters where about the Little Dragons (or Little Tigers) and China. Professor Llewelyn sketches in a few sentences a mini-biography of some highly interesting Chinese companies with iconic brands and IP, such as Li Ning, Haier Group, Mengniu, Huawei, ZTE etc. Before the text Professor Llewelyn put a great maxim: "Don't make the mistake of thinking something is valuable merely because you can measure it. It is far better to work out what you can value and then see if you can measure it." That same maxim could not only be applied to IP, but to reading a book such as Invisible Gold in Asia as well.

If you want to get an overview of IP in Asia, this is the book to read. If you are an IP professional the book is the perfect present to give to clients, so that they can learn about the importance of IP, or to give to your spouse, or friends, so that they can get a clue about what you are doing.

Invisible Gold in Asia, Creating Wealth Through Intellectual Property, can be bought at Marshall Cavendish Business.

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Professor Llewelyn: "Leverage Your IP Rights"

This Morning IP Dragon attended a breakfast seminar by Professor David Llewelyn (IP Academy of Singapore and Of Counsel at White & Case in Singapore). Even though it was quite early, many people interested in how to maximise the use of IP did show up at the office of White & Case in Central, Hong Kong. Professor Llewelyn's presentation was about Intellectual Property Rights as a Balance Sheet Asset. In other words how to commercialise your intellectual property rights. Below is a brief impression:

Professor Llewelyn rightly made the point that IP is not just a legal tool. That the IP assets are fast becoming a focus of the investment world. The securitization of intellecutal property rights is in Asia nascent. Article 26 Copyright Law 2010 even mentions this possibility explicitly: "Where a copyright is used as a pledge, both the pledgor and pledgee shall register the pledge with the copyright administrative authorities of the State Council."

China's leadership understands that it has to climb the value chain in order to continue its economic growth. And IP is protecting this added value. Professor Llewelyn covered the different kinds of intellectual property rights (he can cover all IPR in one hour, see here) and explained the origin of patent (to disclose the information in exchange for a temporary monopoly) as the opposite of latent (which one could apply to trade secrets).

Llewelyn described how Li Ning (athletic shoes and sporting goods) used a combination of the swoosh of Nike, the stripes of Adidas and the wave of Puma and using the slogan "Everything is possible" (while Adidas uses the slogan "Impossible is nothing", read an article by Drog Poleg on Danwei here) and still gets away with it.

About trademarks Professor Llewelyn said that many companies did not pick a very good name. He illustrated this by drawing the travails of China's computer manufacturer Lenovo, who used be called Legend. But this laudatory name was very hard to trademark in other countries. So it had to rename itself to Lenovo (Legend + Novo), which must have been a costly operation.

He made the distinction between copyrights which give the copyright holder the right to exclude others from copying their work, but is not giving a monopoly to the holder as is the case with patents.

In China most companies have utility patents which are not examined, therefore cheap, but really do not tell competitors anything about whether they are valid or not. Professor Llewelyn told about the IP game, of patent trolls (non-practising entities), licensing and sub licensing etc. which, of course, is a serious game, because a lot can be at stake. Valuation of IP can be very difficult. But it is getting more important, since many companies start to park their IP assets in "tax neutral" jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Jersey etc.

You should know first what you have. Then use what you have. Leverage your IP rights.

Professor Llewelyn made a case for using IP strategically. And to bring IP out of the marketing and legal departments into the boardroom. One of the board should own the IP issue internally and deal with the IP challenges.

I am looking forward to read his book: 'Invisible Gold in Asia', which deals about the same crucial subject matter that only becomes more important for each and every company: Creating wealth through intellectual property.

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