In this chapter, he talks about various intangible assets of company like Brands, Patents and regulatory licenses. Brands provide anywhere between fragile to strong moat. He makes a very good point wherein a brand is not an asset if it does not translate into pricing power for the company by which it can earn higher profits. Some examples that I can think off in India is Airtel. Here the brand does not matter much. If we compare that to say Vodafone or Idea, all give good call quality and if Airtel prices higher customer would switch to others even though the brand recall could be higher. Compare this to a Titan. Titan can significantly charge higher for their watches compared to other Indian brands and make better profits.
Second intangible asset is the Intellectual property. While this asset provides some amount of protection, it is filled with litigation and other challenges. In this area a company with more IPs is always preferred than a company with just few IP.
Third and final asset is the regulatory approval or licenses to operate. This provides a good moat as they are not easily available. Take rating agencies like Crisil or CARE. Anyone cannot become a rating agency and this provides a good moat. Also mining licenses provide a good moat. As per the author licenses that needs multiple regulatory approval from various bodies provides much stronger moat than ones that need one big approval.
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