Getting smart about intellectual property and intangible assets to support public services and the wider economy, the government has published a report looking at how to generate greater value from public sector knowledge assets.

• Intangible assets – A supplementary document published alongside the Budget sets out how the government is looking to get a better financial, economic and social return on its estimated £150 billion of intellectual property and other intangible assets. The importance of intangible assets to the UK’s continued economic success is also reflected in the government’s intention to introduce targeted relief for the cost of intellectual property-rich acquisitions by UK companies, set out in Chapter 3.
• Intangible fixed assets regime – In early 2018, the government reviewed how the tax treatment of acquired intangible assets could be made more competitive and administrable. Following a short consultation, the government will seek to introduce targeted relief for the cost of goodwill (the amount paid for a business that exceeds the fair value of its individual assets and liabilities) in the acquisition of businesses with eligible intellectual property from April 2019. With effect from 7 November 2018, the government will also reform the de-grouping charge rules, which apply when a group sells a company that owns intangibles, so that they more closely align with the equivalent rules elsewhere in the tax code.
• Intellectual property – The Intellectual Property Office will support more companies to use their intellectual property to access finance, piloting a new offer to help businesses secure high-quality valuations, and will work with banks to improve their awareness of the opportunities and true credit risk associated with such lending.

Dids Macdonald, CEO of ACID said, “Through the Alliance for Intellectual Property Office, ACID will be continuing these discussions with the IPO. Since the Alliance for IP manifesto in 2015, we have been pushing for some time for better access to finance, I hope now there is a real desire to raise the bar about the significance of IP rich industries to the UK to make this happen.”