Major findings of Survey on Manpower in Intellectual Property Trading and Management

     A wide range of industry groups in Hong Kong are engaged in intellectual property (IP) intermediary services and IP trading/management activities, according to the results of a survey released today (December 28) by the Intellectual Property Department (IPD).

     The Survey on Manpower in IP Trading and Management (the Survey) was commissioned by the IPD in 2017 to collect information on the current landscape of the workforce engaged in IP intermediary services and IP trading/management activities in Hong Kong, the types of services engaged by the relevant industry groups, the job level spreads and the market demand for the personnel involved. A total of 2 424 establishments across 20 industry groups were successfully enumerated in the Survey.

     The survey results confirm that legal services play a pivotal role in providing intermediary services for IP protection, management and trading activities. According to the results, as many as 54 per cent of the establishments providing solicitor services indicated that they had provided one or more types of IP intermediary services during the period before the Survey.

      Apart from industry groups providing intermediary services, IP trading/management activities are also prevalent in a wide range of other selected industry groups, particularly those in the creative industries. The proportion of establishments which indicated that they were involved in IP trading/management activities reached 72 per cent for "TV programming and broadcasting", 54 per cent for "multimedia, visual and graphic design activities" and 51 per cent for "sound recording and music publishing".
      
     Regarding the manpower situation, the findings indicated that over 3 300 persons were engaged in the provision of IP intermediary services in Hong Kong. About 42 per cent of the personnel were "professionals".

     It is also estimated that over 21 600 persons were engaged by the other selected industry groups for IP trading/management work. Their job level spread varied across different industry groups due to different business focus. The industry group of "multimedia, visual and graphic design activities", for example, has the highest proportion (55 per cent) of "professionals", whereas the industry group of "retail sale of wearing apparel, luggage cases, handbags, similar articles of leather/leather substitutes, jewellery and precious metal accessories" has the highest proportion (69 per cent) of "managers and administrators", among staff engaged in IP trading/management work.

     The survey results also revealed that the vast majority of personnel engaged in providing IP intermediary services (at least 94 per cent for each of the different job levels) and staff engaged in IP trading/management work (at least 92 per cent for each of the different job levels) were recruited locally.

     The Director of Intellectual Property, Ms Ada Leung, said, "Hong Kong is committed to promoting its development as an IP trading hub in the Asia-Pacific region. Like many businesses, manpower is an indispensable component for the business of IP trading and management to thrive and sharpen its advantages in the face of keen competition. The Survey commissioned by the IPD is the first study dedicated to IP manpower in Hong Kong. The findings of this survey will help identify the specific training needs of various industry groups for enhancing their IP manpower capacity so as to further promote the development of IP trading in Hong Kong."
      
     The Survey aims to complement the host of measures which Hong Kong has been taking to enhance the manpower capacity of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for developing IP trading and to strengthen its role as an IP trading hub in the Asia-Pacific Region. The Government, for example, has been jointly working with the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and the Hong Kong Design Centre in holding the "Business of IP Asia Forum" annually, with the latest forum just held on December 6 and 7. The IPD also launched the Free IP Consultation Service in December 2014 to provide free consultation to SMEs in IP protection, management and commercialisation, and over 320 consultation sessions had been completed up to November 2018. The IPD also launched in May 2015 the IP Manager Scheme, and over 1500 people have attended the IP Manager Training Programmes organised by IPD. 

     The summary of survey results is available on the dedicated website "Hong Kong – the IP Trading Hub" (www.ip.gov.hk/en/resources/survey.html).