Intellectual property rights are put on the valuation floor

On the afternoon of December 10, the National Assembly passed the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Intellectual Property Law, with a focus on turning intellectual property rights into assets that can be valued, traded, mortgaged and exploited as an economic resource.

The law stipulates that owners may use intellectual property rights to carry out civil, commercial, investment transactions and other activities according to regulations. The State encourages the exploitation of intellectual property rights to contribute capital and mortgage loans according to laws on investment, enterprises, credit and related regulations.

The State promotes comprehensive digital transformation of intellectual property activities by prioritizing the development of digital infrastructure, building a database on protection and a database on transaction prices of intellectual property rights, ensuring safety, transparency and user friendliness. Business processes are automated on the basis of large databases and artificial intelligence to improve management efficiency.

Intellectual property rights transactions are carried out through innovation centers. The Government is responsible for establishing a transparent pricing system, in which the Law stipulates the building of a database on intellectual property transaction prices as a reference base for the market.

Explaining this policy, Minister of Science and Technology Nguyen Manh Hung said that the law aims to turn intellectual property into an economic asset of businesses, which can be valued, bought and sold, recorded in financial statements and become collateral for loans. The focus shifts from the “rights protection” mechanism to “assetification – commercialization – marketization” of research results.

The law also adds important principles on artificial intelligence in the field of intellectual property. Accordingly, artificial intelligence is not the subject of intellectual property rights. Products created by AI without human creativity will not be protected. In case people use AI as a tool and make substantive creative contributions, they are still considered authors and inventors.

The law allows organizations and individuals to use legally published works and data to research, test and train artificial intelligence systems, provided that they do not unreasonably affect the rights and legitimate interests of rights holders. The government will detail the use of copyrighted data for AI training.

With industrial designs, the Law expands the scope of protection to non-physical products, including digital designs, digital interfaces and products that exist in the digital environment, if they meet industrial applicability.

In case an object gives rise to multiple intellectual property rights and there is a conflict, the Law stipulates that later rights must be terminated if they conflict with previous rights, based on a court decision.

The law stipulates that intellectual property rights protection cannot be used to prevent the use of the National Flag, National Emblem, or National Anthem in the digital environment. For computer programs, the Law continues to protect them as literary works, allowing the creation of legal backup copies and compliance with license agreements when distributed via digital platforms.

For research results using state budget, organizations assigned scientific tasks have the right to register for protection of inventions and industrial designs and organize commercialization and distribution of benefits according to the provisions of law on science, technology and innovation.

The national program to support the creation, protection and exploitation of intellectual property was built, with priority given to rural, mountainous areas and ethnic minorities, in order to expand the space for intellectual property development throughout the economy.

The Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Intellectual Property Law takes effect from April 1, 2026.