Money management in the creative and conventional economies does not substantially differ. Thinking and creating are not free. Research represents a long and strenuous process of investment (time and money). The cost of operating a business with intellectual assets only is lower than the cost of starting a conventional business which uses both physical and intellectual assets. The former also has the advantage that it can delay paying for the intellectual assets, or pay them with equity. But the insubstantial nature of these assets deters would-be investors, and even those who have a stake in the business have problems in valuing it and their share. That is why patents, copyrights and trademarks have seldom been used as collateral for loans and, when they are, their value is underplayed.
One of the fields where more intellectual assets are used is the digital economy. With regard to the research in software industries, I shall further develop a separate chapter in which I shall describe the main types of innovation and the impact of open source.
