There has always been a big controversy in the industry on the evaluation scope of state-owned enterprise restructuring, that is, whether intangible assets such as patent rights, non-patented technology, trademark rights and goodwill of state-owned enterprises need to be included in the evaluation scope. It is understood that in the past reform of state-owned enterprises, especially in the sale of small enterprises all over the country in the middle and late 1990s, most state-owned enterprises did not include these intangible assets (especially trademark rights and goodwill) in the scope of evaluation, and of course they were not included in the scope of restructuring, and they were not included in the scope of asset transactions of state-owned enterprises, which made the value of these intangible assets disappear in the restructuring of state-owned enterprises. Of course, this may also be related to the weak awareness of state-owned enterprises in technical protection, brand creation and maintenance, but the more important reason is that the relevant parties in the reform and sale of state-owned enterprises are deliberately evading this problem and playing the so-called "edge ball" in a planned way. Such intangible assets do not exist within the scope of evaluation, restructuring and sale of state-owned enterprises, but after the successful restructuring or transaction, the new transferee can take possession of these intangible assets naturally, which directly leads to the "hidden" loss of state-owned assets. On the other hand, due to the restrictions and norms of the current accounting system and accounting standards, intangible assets such as patent rights, non-patented technology, trademark rights and goodwill of state-owned enterprises are often not reflected or seriously insufficient in the balance sheet of enterprises, which also provides another reason for the above-mentioned "edge ball" players.
Of course, in the previous evaluation of the restructuring or sale of state-owned enterprises, whether the intangible assets of state-owned enterprises such as patents, non-patented technologies, trademarks and goodwill should be included in the evaluation scope is decided by the entrusting party, and the evaluation agencies often only make vague disclosure in the evaluation report, such as "the scope of this evaluation is limited to the assets declared by the entrusting party", but it has not been clearly disclosed whether the state-owned enterprises own these intangible assets and whether these intangible assets are included in the evaluation scope promulgated by the Opinions. The new opinion clearly requires that "intangible assets such as patent rights, non-patented technologies, trademark rights and goodwill of enterprises must be included in the scope of evaluation", which completely solves this sensitive topic that has been controversial for a long time. According to the rights and obligations of the entrusting party and the entrusted party, the specific determination of the evaluation scope is decided by the entrusting party (in this paper, the state-owned enterprise or its superior competent department) after the asset verification procedure. The "Opinions" also reiterated the responsibility of the subject of assets verification: "The legal representative and financial director of the restructured enterprise are responsible for the authenticity and accuracy of the results of assets verification". As the trustee of asset appraisal, the appraisal institution should verify the assets and capital verification results of the entrusting party, especially the intangible assets that are included but not included in the appraisal scope, and should require the entrusting party to change the assets and capital verification results accordingly and include all these intangible assets in the appraisal scope. If the intangible assets are not included in the appraisal scope after being submitted to the entrusting party, they shall be clearly disclosed in the appraisal report.
In addition, according to the principle of conservatism, it is internationally recognized that contingent assets and related or advantageous assets are generally not disclosed. Therefore, these contingent assets and related or advantageous assets cannot be included in the evaluation scope, but in order to reflect the correct use of the evaluation report by users and prevent the hidden loss of state-owned assets in the process of restructuring, the existing contingent assets and related or advantageous assets of enterprises should be listed separately when defining the evaluation scope.