Note from the Publisher: Something we have seldom (in fact never) covered on FintekNews is the issue of intellectual property as it pertains to fintech, so when we caught a blog on Lawyers.com talking about exactly that, we thought it bore a further look. In fact, we've seen a few references to this of late coming form firms out of the Cayman Islands. For those of you not involved in the alternatives world, the Cayman Islands are a popular location for setting up hedge funds and the like, because of favorable tax laws. Hence, many service providers to the industry including fund admin and legal firms have set up shop there to service the industry. This article delves into the side of fintech covering the funds industry and explans that the Caymans also offers advantageous laws pertaining to intellectual property. One more piece of the vast fintech puzzle that we love to cover for you at FintekNews.
"Recent years have seen an unprecedented rise of the FinTech industry, i.e. financial technology businesses. According to the World Fintech Report 2017, more than half of financial services users worldwide do business with at least one non-traditional service provider, while traditional financial services firms are desperately trying to foster innovation (and usually end up seeking partnerships with or outright buying out FinTech start-ups).......
"......As one of the foremost offshore financial centres, home to circa 70% of the world’s offshore investment funds, the Cayman Islands may soon become an attractive destination for FinTech entrepreneurs aiming to provide solutions for capital markets analytics, trading and portfolio management, as well as risk management and compliance. According to another recent report, a third of hedge fund managers are already using some type of FinTech-related solutions for their investment strategies and are carefully monitoring the FinTech landscape to maintain their competitive edge. Overall, FinTech can flourish in the Cayman Islands through synergies with already established industries.
The Cayman Islands legal framework has been modernized to cover intellectual property rights in the digital age. FinTechs generally own a combination of an established “brand” or “trade name” (including logos or icons) protected as registered or unregistered trademarks and original works including software and codes which in certain cases may benefit from copyright protection. In some cases, patents and industrial designs are also included. All these IP rights are protected under Cayman Islands laws to the same standards as in the UK."
Read Full Blog by Gary Smith at Lawyers.com