Characteristics and classification of intangible assets

The article analyses legislative and doctrinal characteristics of intangible goods: inalienability and non-transferability, the problem of lack of economic substance, intangible nature, belonging to a citizen from birth or by virtue of law. It is noted that to characterise such benefits the legislator uses the term ‘intangible’ without disclosing its meaning, which in the doctrine has led to a discussion about its content: it is about its form (i.e. the impossibility of embodied embodiment of the benefit) or the impossibility of valuation of the benefit in money. The author supports the position of those scientists who disclose the concept of ‘intangible’ from the position of the form of the object. It has been established that in scientific doctrine such a fundamental feature of intangible goods as the absence of material content has been repeatedly subjected to doubt. However, this feature is one of the indisputable ones. The conclusions about the possibility of monetary valuation of business reputation are supported, as they are based on the norms of the current legislation, which expressly allow for the reimbursable transfer of business reputation of a subject for use by another person. It is concluded that the sign of absence of economic content is not universal, applicable to all intangible goods listed in Article 150 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. In addition, the justification of the possibility of monetary valuation of a number of intangible goods calls into question one of their legislative features - non-transferability. Taking into account that some intangible goods can be the object of civil-law transactions, the author's classification of intangible goods, based on the criterion of negotiability, is proposed.