Intellectual property is as much a tradable commodity as oil or metals. But can this asset class be transferred to an exchange-traded model? Agnieszka Troszkiewicz reports on the latest moves to tap this $5tr market.
Patents, trademarks and trade secrets are crucial ingredients of today’s successful business. A total of 1.76m patent applications were filed in 2006 across the world with 727,000 patents granted the same year, the World Intellectual Property Organisation estimates. In the US alone, there are around 7m patents with another 300,000-400,000 new ones issued every year.
But intellectual property can be a lucrative business too and is becoming recognised as an important asset class. A 2005 study by Hassett and Shapiro estimates the US intellectual property market at more than $5tr.
“Intellectual property is the largest asset class on the planet and yet there is no central marketplace. It’s quite...