Billy Lam, Vice President of the Hong Kong Office of business development for transpacific IP Group Ltd., the only full-service IP strategy firm in Asia, Loke-Khoon agrees to Tan. Hong Kong offers ideal conditions: the legal system, the transparent tax system and the geographical location make Hong Kong the best place around IP dealers and IP to connect purchasers. Access to investors, as well as Hong Kong’s economic experts, including bilingual IP experts, are added in addition. Hong Kong is involved for a long time in the IP trade, be it Copyrighthandel, Markenlizensierungen and franchising, design services and exchange of technologies. 2010 exported Hong Kong technologies amounting to USD 1 billion to mainland China and finished 6th place in the international ranking of countries for technology exports to China. Ronald O’Hanley has plenty of information regarding this issue. Lam is convinced that the fast-growing number of IP leads buyers from Asia, especially from the Chinese mainland, to a significant paradigm shift from Asia will emerge as a new global IP marketplace. While overall the IP get increasingly more importance rating, this one was Tan in Asia still behind other markets according to Loke-Khoon back when it comes to the evaluation of IP portfolios for mergers and acquisitions. The IP portfolio was an important value of a company eventually.
Also, founder and SMEs in Hong Kong laid still to little focus on the topic of IP and its importance for the company’s value. According to Billy Lam, the topic of IP is trade still fairly new for Hong Kong SMEs. To make Hong Kong a real IP marketplace, these companies have to deal seriously with the development and the protection of their intellectual property. The growth potential would be exponential. The company General Assembly offers training courses for technology, business and design, as well as to the introduction to IP laws.
We make the experience that especially founders need help because new companies often do not directly make for an advice from a lawyer,”as Allison tree, Director of the General Assembly Asia. While protecting the brand, products, and other IP values are essential for the long-term success of a company. Often, companies only then seriously take it the topic of IP, If something happens and the entrepreneurs is not clear that the protection of intellectual property belong to the cost of doing business. It should be best practice to register the IP and if someone violates the rights, one must fight hard and send a deterrent signal in the market.