[from APEC News, by María Gloria Riethmüller Harland, Singapore]
Every day, I pass by small businesses that bring life to our neighborhoods. A corner café with its own blend, a family bakery known for its special recipe, a local designer selling clothes under her own brand. Few of them would think of themselves as intellectual property owners, yet in many ways they are.
Their innovative brands, recipes and ideas are often their most valuable assets. But for most small businesses, intellectual property still feels like something meant for large companies with legal teams.
Over the last two years of chairing the APEC Intellectual Property Rights Experts’ Group (IPEG), one conviction has only grown stronger. Intellectual property should not be a privilege for a few. It should be the foundation that lets anyone with a good idea earn from its expression and grow. It should spark more creativity across our region. It should help build new businesses, new jobs and shared prosperity.
In practice, for a small business owner, the system can feel complex, costly and hard to navigate. The landscape is also changing quickly, as new technologies and online trade reshape how ideas are made, shared and protected.
When IPEG was created in 1997, its focus was making global trade rules on intellectual property work between economies. Over time, its work has grown to place small businesses, along with women, young innovators and local communities, at the center.
Our work over the past two years has been about making that shift real.
Small businesses, big ideas
Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) account for more than 97 percent of businesses in the APEC region. The challenge is not whether they have valuable ideas, they do. The challenge is turning those ideas into growth.
Intellectual property can help small businesses protect what makes them different, secure finance and expand into new markets with confidence.
The difference can be striking. A study [archived PDF] by IP Australia found that new small businesses that filed for intellectual property in their first year were twice as likely to achieve strong sales and employment growth. Yet the study found that only a small fraction of MSMEs own intellectual property.
That is why small businesses sit at the heart of IPEG’s 2025-2026 Work Plan.
Some of the most valuable lessons came from simply listening. Last year August in Incheon, I moderated our Policy Dialogue on Intellectual Property for Business, with a focus on SMEs. Our conversations were honest and practical, from making the system more user-friendly for small business owners to the opportunities e-commerce opens for them.
Conversations matter, but only if they lead to change. This one did. Following the dialogue, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) offered member economies the opportunity to embark on a project, asking small businesses directly how they understand, use and perceive intellectual property, and what stands in their way. Such projects aim to help offices and policymakers across the region build systems and support around real needs, not assumptions.
When we met in Dalian this August, the progress was clear. Some economies shared how they are running training workshops that help firms, especially technology startups, identify and actively manage their intellectual property strategically. Others are offering support in valuing patents, so small businesses can use their inventions to secure loans.
Step by step, intellectual property is becoming a tool small business owners and innovators can actually use, not just one they hear about.
Keeping pace with technology
Technology is changing how ideas come to a reality and are sold. But it is also changing how we protect those inventions, giving intellectual property offices new tools to work faster, smarter while making systems simpler for business owners.
Take patents, which protect new inventions. To get one, an inventor has to prove their idea is genuinely new. With a record 3.7 million patent applications filed worldwide in 2024, that is no small task.
Artificial intelligence search tools can now help compare applications more thoroughly rather than simple keyword matches. Chatbots walk first-time applicants through the search process. New translation tools make it simpler to understand patents filed across the region.
For a small business, this is far from a technical detail. Faster and more accurate searches mean knowing early whether an idea is genuinely new, before spending money on an application and investing in their venture.
Used well, technology can turn a complex process into a quicker, clearer path to protection.
Every idea counts
But a system is only as strong as the people it reaches.
Women, for example, accounted for just 18 percent [archived PDF] of inventors named in international patent applications in 2024. For the people and communities behind unprotected good inventions, that means missed income, missed recognition and missed growth.
Changing that takes partnership. By enhancing dialogue with APEC’s Policy Partnership on Women and the Economy, IPEG can build women entrepreneurs’ know-how on using intellectual property to protect their brands and designs, helping them to grow internationally.
Every region also has its own valuable cultural or geographical assets, while communities also carry traditions passed down over generations, from recipes and crafts to songs and stories. They are not just part of communities’ heritage and pride. For many, these traditions and assets can become sources of income. Intellectual property plays a vital role here too.
Geographical indications, labels that tie a product’s name to its place of origin, are one way to do that. Across the region, they are helping more small local businesses and women-led enterprises stand out from imitations, reach new buyers and become more competitive.
Copyright is reaching folk art too, from traditional stories to music and designs. Clear rights give communities the confidence to share their traditions widely and give new generations a reason to keep creating with them.
Inclusion is not a side project for intellectual property. It is the test of whether the system works at all. When intellectual property reaches more people, more creations reach the world, benefiting workers, MSMEs, communities and consumers. That simple belief has guided IPEG’s work for the past two years.
In August, I chaired my final IPEG meeting in Dalian. What I value most is not any single outcome, but the spirit behind our work.
IPEG is a space for dialogue. A space to ensure intellectual property drives resilience, innovation and growth. A space where economies with different experiences work together to make intellectual property more meaningful and accessible.
That space matters more than ever. New technologies, new business models and new forms of creativity are creating both opportunities and challenges. I encourage IPEG to keep using this forum not only to exchange information, but to thinking creatively about where APEC cooperation can make more tangible differences.
Because in the end, the measure of our work is simple. It is whether the corner café, the family bakery and the young designer down the street can turn their innovations into a lasting livelihood.