Vietnam, alongside international bodies, is now racing to standardise valuation methods and build data architecture needed to turn intangible assets into something that can be traded.

How the world values ideas

Nguyen Hoang Giang, Deputy Director of the Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam (IPVN) under the Ministry of Science and Technology, said putting a price on IP is a critical step to commercialising research outcomes.

Vietnam’s legal framework already enables intangible asset valuation, and international methodologies can be applied. Yet IP valuation remains a knotty problem for regulators, valuation firms, universities, research institutes and businesses, all of whom are hunting for clearer roadmaps.

The International Valuation Standards Council (IVSC) treats valuation as the first move toward commercialising IP rights. Three globally accepted approaches are now in use: the income approach, which projects future cash flows from the asset; the market approach, which benchmarks against comparable IP deals where data exists; and the cost approach, which tallies the expense of creating or replacing the asset, including R&D and registration.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) leads the global push, running training courses, championing common standards and maintaining expert networks that buttress knowledge-based economies. In 2023, WIPO signed a memorandum of understanding with the IVSC, an independent global nonprofit organisation that sets valuation standards to ensure transparency and consistency, to deepen cooperation in valuing IP and other intangibles. Their joint work concentrates on harmonising methodologies, building common standards and lifting valuation capacity for patents, copyrights, brands and other intangible assets.

Getting IP valuation right remains a stubborn global challenge. The WIPO – IVSC partnership therefore helps countries erect more standardised legal and technical frameworks for the task.

In Vietnam, WIPO has backed capacity building and helped shape standards that ease the conversion of intangible assets into real economic value. Through the IPVN, WIPO also supplies international experience and policy guidance, aiding the shift from a resource-based economy to one driven by innovation and intangibles.

Building database to meet investor expectations

Nguyen Huu Can, Acting Director of the Vietnam IP Research Institute, insisted that Vietnam must build a comprehensive database to advance IP valuation. Such systems, he argued, would provide a strategic direction for government agencies, rights holders, consultants, and experts, and tighten the alignment between asset valuation and what investors are actually willing to pay.

Duong Lan Anh, deputy head of the Valuation Management Division under the Finance Ministry’s Department of Price Management, noted that while regulations for intangible-asset valuation already exist under Vietnam’s standards, execution remains hampered. The cost approach frequently fails to capture profit potential. The market approach is hobbled by an opaque IP transaction market. The income approach, which homes in on future cash flow, is seen as more suitable but remains acutely sensitive to assumptions and forecaster skill.

Many valuation firms flagged data scarcity, inconsistent application of discount rates and gaps between the valuations by asset owners and investors as persistent choke points.

According to experts, Vietnam’s market for IP trading, licensing and transfers is still thin, with few publicly visible deals, making market-based methods hard to apply because of a lack of comparable data.

Over the long term, Vietnam is being pushed to meet international intangible asset valuation standards step by step. The prize, if it gets there, is greater transparency and credibility, more investment and sharper competitiveness for Vietnamese companies in the global economy./.

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