Intellectual Property is categorized as intangible assets having economic value. It means commercially the intellectual property can be assigned, resold, or licensed. Therefore, actually the intellectual properties are valuable assets and also become particular sources of financing for macro or micro companies.
Actually intellectual property financing pledge is not a new thing in intellectual property world. It has already been accepted and practiced by some countries, even though the allowed intellectual property to be pledged is still limited to copyrights. One of the factual examples is the songwriters, and producer of hits song included “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson were using their copyrights of 247 songs as financing pledge.
Then, how is in Indonesian practice?
Even though it can be accepted and also practiced in some countries in the world, practically in Indonesia the intellectual property financing pledge has not been accepted yet because of not having regulated yet in explicitly in Bank of Indonesia Regulation No. 7/2/PBI/2005 juncto Bank of Indonesia Regulation No. 9/6/PBI/2007 regarding Banking Collateral. Thus, all banks in Indonesia are still objecting to accept the intellectual property as financing pledge and also generating a worry for the Banks for having responsibility to other institutions (Financial Services Authority and the Audit Board of Indonesia).
Besides there is no specific provision which regulates explicitly the intellectual property financing pledge, Banks are still having difficulty to give an appraisal to the intellectual property pledge due to there has not been a standardization and criteria for the intellectual property pledge.
In spite of the fact that intellectual property financing pledge has not been accepted and practiced in Indonesia at this time, it will be possible it can be enacted in the future since the intellectual property laws have been regulated about the financing pledge itself. As asserted in Article 108 of the Indonesian Patent Law No. 13 of 2016, “The Patent rights can be used as a fiduciary pledge”.
Besides the intellectual property financing pledge will be enacted or not, protecting intellectual property is very important for the companies because it may increase the company’s assets value.