Context: Since 1953, China’s government has put out its notorious Five-Year Plans as its primary strategic macroeconomic blueprints to set social, economic, and industrial development goals. They are used to align state support, private industry, and regional authorities toward long-term national priorities. Last week, the Hong Kong government published its first-ever Five-Year Plan, which includes a pledge to transform it into a center for international legal and dispute resolution services and a regional IP trading center (September 16, 2026 HK government Five-Year Plan webpage).
This, the government noted, will be done in four main ways:
- The establishment of an IP Academy: cultivate talents with IP creation and financing knowledge;
- Create a “low-cost, high-flow” IP trade hub: explore IP financing models, and attract investment to IP-intensive industries such as innovation and technology, and cultural and creative industries;
- Deepen cooperation with China: support Chinese enterprises in using Hong Kong as an IP trading platform for “going global”; and
- Deepen the reform of the patent system: make the patent system more effective in supporting the protection of scientific research results, technology transfer, commercialization, and industrialization.
What’s new: Lawyers from across both HK and China shared their thoughts on the new plan with ip fray. While they were generally positive about the development, some were skeptical about the progress HK has made in recent years regarding the monetisation of IP, and highlighted the difficulties cities in China have had in becoming a successful IP trading hub. “If cities such as Shenzhen—with a much larger pool of patents, technology companies, manufacturers, investors and potential licensees—still find it difficult to develop a self-sustaining IP trading market, it is unclear what comparative advantage Hong Kong would have in originating and executing such transactions,” one source said.
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