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The digital economy is an important engine for high-quality economic development in the new era, and data has become an important production factor alongside traditional factors such as land, capital, and technology. Data factors, the most contemporary new phenomenon in the transformation of the industrial economy to the digital economy, not only directly create social value, but also effectively reduce transaction costs through integration with other production factors, form economies of scale and scope, improve allocation efficiency and incentive efficiency, and significantly improve total factor productivity.

In recent years, the national level has also introduced a series of policies related to data assetization. In December 2022, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Building a Data Basic System to Better Play the Role of Data Elements", proposing to build a data basic system and fully realize the value of data elements, providing a top-level design plan for the data element market; in August 2023, the Ministry of Finance formulated and issued the "Interim Provisions on Accounting Treatment of Enterprise Data Resources", which clarified the asset attributes of data and the scope of application of inclusion in the table, accounting treatment and use criteria, listing and disclosure requirements, and will be officially implemented on January 1, 2024.

It should be pointed out that while the value of data is being discovered, the number of infringements and potential risks associated with it is also increasing. How to "add a protection lock to data intellectual property" has also become a direction of exploration for local intellectual property offices and insurance institutions.

In August 2023, Hangzhou launched the first data intellectual property infringement loss insurance. Now that the insurance product has been in operation for nearly a year, how do the insured institutions perceive the product during this year? From what angles can data intellectual property insurance be improved? With such questions, the reporter of "Daily Economic News" went to Zhejiang to find the answers from front-line practice.

Hangzhou explores data intellectual property path to support entrepreneurship and innovation

Data intellectual property rights refer to the rights and interests enjoyed by data processors over data sets that are collected in accordance with the law, processed by certain algorithms, and have practical value and intellectual property attributes. "For example, a company collects statistics on its own sales data and uses certain algorithmic rules to enable this part of the data to guide the company's next sales actions or solve problems in certain scenarios. This process will generate data intellectual property rights." As an emerging company with data evidence, data assetization and reliable and secure data sharing as its core business, Yin Keting, general manager of Hangzhou Liancheng Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Liancheng Digital Technology"), has his own understanding of data intellectual property rights.

According to him, there are many data infringement behaviors at present, such as illegal collection of personal information, excessive use of personal information, illegal sale of personal information, infringement of privacy rights, etc. Taking infringement of privacy rights as an example, it includes but is not limited to infringing on the privacy rights of others by means of spying, harassment, disclosure, and disclosure, such as entering, photographing, and peeping into the private space of others, photographing, peeping, eavesdropping, and publicizing the private activities of others.

Liancheng Digital Technology on-site communication meeting Photo source: Photo taken by Yuan Yuan, a reporter from Meijing

However, even if data faces a high risk of infringement, many companies are unwilling to invest too much in risk protection. "For data-related companies, it is already very difficult to carry out innovative business. If they have to spend another fee to do risk protection, companies will definitely not be happy. Take insurance as an example. Companies with insurance needs and higher risks will definitely have relatively high premiums for their business, which will inevitably reduce the company's willingness to buy." Yin Keting, who has in-depth research on the industry, said that companies with low business risks are even less willing to buy. This is not limited to the insurance field. Innovative companies have this perception in many business aspects.

Yin Keting often participates in industry forums, where industry organizations give various opinions and suggestions on these current issues. But in the final analysis, it is very difficult to promote the large-scale application of innovative products in an industry and field, and various difficulties need to be overcome.

In order to promote the high-quality development of data property rights, Zhejiang Province, one of the domestic data intellectual property pilots, issued the "Opinions on Deepening Data Intellectual Property Reform to Promote High-Quality Development", encouraging banks, insurance and other financial institutions to incorporate the innovative use of data intellectual property rights into the corporate credit reporting system and carry out data intellectual property financial product innovation. Support qualified regions to establish data intellectual property risk compensation funds, establish and improve data intellectual property value creation and value realization risk sharing mechanisms. Support financial institutions to integrate and utilize various types of data intellectual property rights, strengthen subject identification, and optimize credit business management, insurance product design, and underwriting and claims services in accordance with the law.

"In recent years, we have been implementing the reform plan of Zhejiang Province's intellectual property insurance innovation pilot and systematically promoting intellectual property-related insurance services, such as optimizing intellectual property insurance policies." A relevant person in charge of the Hangzhou Binjiang Market Supervision Bureau said that based on the needs of the entire region's intellectual property insurance work, the Hangzhou Hi-tech Zone will provide certain premium support to institutions that purchase intellectual property insurance.

At the same time, Hangzhou Binjiang Market Supervision Bureau also actively promoted the development and implementation of data intellectual property related insurance according to the needs of enterprises. In August 2023, the data intellectual property infringement loss insurance implemented in Hangzhou was completed under the promotion of Hangzhou Binjiang Market Supervision Bureau. "Data intellectual property is actually not included in the types of intellectual property stipulated in our current laws, so Zhejiang's pilot is to explore this new path." The relevant person in charge of the Hangzhou Binjiang Market Supervision Bureau said that the bureau alsoWe have developed a targeted Zhejiang Province regional insurance clause for data intellectual property infringement loss insurance. This clause expands the scope of policyholders on the basis of the main insurance, allowing all science and technology enterprises in Hangzhou to take out insurance.

80,000 yuan guarantee turns "data intellectual property" into "data assets"

It is reported that data intellectual property infringement loss insurance is based on the protection needs of enterprises for their own patent data. By purchasing insurance, they can add a "barrier" to the data they legally own and obtain the data intellectual property registration certificate in the data intellectual property registration system and evidence storage platform. Once an enterprise encounters a data security incident, this type of insurance can promptly compensate the enterprise for the financial needs of data intellectual property infringement losses, emergency response costs, data recovery costs, rights protection costs, etc., effectively reducing the cost of enterprise data recovery. After registration with the relevant competent authorities, enterprises with data intellectual property registration certificates can be insured.

"The risk pricing of data intellectual property infringement loss insurance is mainly determined by factors such as the enterprise's information system security protection level and the value of data intellectual property." A relevant person in charge of the Hangzhou Municipal Organization Department of PICC Property and Casualty Insurance said that the premium of data intellectual property infringement loss insurance = insured amount * premium rate. The insurance liability covers the investigation costs, legal fees, emergency response costs, data recovery costs and direct economic losses after the data intellectual property is infringed.

As one of the first institutions to insure data intellectual property rights infringement losses, Liancheng Digital Technology has insured the two data intellectual property rights, "Notary Office Remote Notarization Time Information Data" and "Notary Office Blockchain Application Index Data", which have been successfully registered on the Zhejiang Provincial Data Intellectual Property Registration Platform, for data intellectual property infringement losses, with a total insured amount of 80,000 yuan and a data scale of 2,276 items. "The main purpose of insuring this product is to obtain comprehensive protection and timely economic compensation in the face of an increasingly complex data security environment, so as to maintain the normal operation and development of the enterprise." Yin Keting said that data intellectual property is still a relatively new concept. At present, the company has not encountered data intellectual property infringement. Purchasing insurance is to prevent this from happening.

Yin Keting believes that participating in data intellectual property infringement loss insurance can ensure that enterprises have financial support to continue operations after being infringed, reduce financial pressure, and help enterprises quickly respond to data leaks or infringement incidents, by compensating for the cost of emergency response and data recovery, to ensure the continuity and stability of operations. "At present, data has become one of the core assets of enterprises. Having data intellectual property insurance can enhance the market competitiveness of enterprises, because it shows that enterprises attach importance to data protection and can effectively manage data risks, thereby attracting customers." Yin Keting said.

PICC Property & Casualty Insurance also has its own views on participating in and developing data intellectual property infringement loss insurance. The relevant person in charge of the Hangzhou Municipal Organization Department of PICC Property & Casualty Insurance said that data element security is becoming more and more important, and protecting data intellectual property is protecting innovation, so PICC took the lead in developing data intellectual property infringement loss insurance to help the development of data companies.

Promoting the development of intellectual property-related insurance requires efforts from all parties

In addition to developing insurance products for related businesses, the Zhejiang Provincial Market Supervision Bureau has also joined hands with multiple parties to create the country's first integrated service platform in the field of data intellectual property - the Zhejiang Province Data Intellectual Property Integrated Service Platform "Shuzhitong", which was launched on the Zhejiang Provincial Government Service Network "Zhejiang Liban", providing an online platform for corporate data intellectual property notarization, registration services, operational transactions, profit distribution, and rights protection.

There is no doubt that Zhejiang has made many explorations in promoting the development and protection of data intellectual property business. However, as an emerging thing, data intellectual property insurance still has a long way to go.

"From an insurance perspective, there are still problems and difficulties in protecting intellectual property rights, including data intellectual property rights." A relevant person in charge of the Hangzhou Municipal Organization Department of PICC Property and Casualty Insurance said that intellectual property protection mainly faces two major problems: First, when promoting intellectual property overseas infringement liability insurance, overseas companies may inadvertently infringe on the intellectual property rights of other companies, face lawsuits, and cause losses to the company; second, it is difficult to evaluate the value of intellectual property rights. Many companies use intellectual property rights to pledge loans to banks, and banks still need a certain evaluation process when issuing loans. Similarly, when underwriting, insurance companies must also evaluate the value of intellectual property rights to determine the underwriting plan.

The above-mentioned person in charge said that, in fact, for insurance companies, new technologies underwriting, data intellectual property rights, etc. are relatively new subjects, and there is a lack of historical data on underwriting and claims. It is difficult to analyze the pricing rules of such insurance products through the original traditional insurance product pricing system and big data models.

"From the data, the function of insurance in transferring risks for technology companies has been reflected. However, there are still some moral risks in the process of underwriting these uncertain targets. If you want to transfer some losses that are not insurance liabilities through insurance, these problems need further research and resolution." The person in charge said that if insurance is to help new productivity, the most important thing is to connect all the technology companies that were like isolated islands in the original scientific and technological activities through the financial attributes of insurance. This is difficult to accomplish by insurance companies alone, and it also requires the joint efforts of the government, third-party professional companies, and scientific research institutions.

A relevant person in charge of PICC Property and Casualty Insurance Co., Ltd. Hangzhou Branch said that despite the continuous efforts of various institutions in terms of service, they are still facing the difficulty of relatively low awareness among enterprises of relevant insurance products. Many enterprises are still taking a wait-and-see attitude towards mitigating operating risks through insurance, and there is still a long way to go to promote related concepts.

The relevant person in charge of the above-mentioned PICC Property and Casualty Insurance Co., Ltd. Hangzhou Branch suggested using media and other channels to publicize new models, new practices and new values ​​of technology insurance. Through media guidance and creation of an atmosphere, companies can gradually recognize and understand technology insurance, and enhance their awareness, perception and demand for technology insurance.

Daily Economic News