EngD Society supported Seminar: IP Management for Innovators

A Seminar named “Intellectual Property (IP) Management for Innovators" was organized by Department of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and supported by CityU EngD Society on 10 April 2014. The guest speaker was Dr. TW Liu (Former senior consultant of Innovation & IP, HKPC) who is a true expert on IP management.

In the beginning, Dr. Walter Fung (Teaching Fellow, Dept. of Computing, PolyU & Former Vice Chairman, CityU EngD Society) gave an opening speech and introduced our guest speaker Dr. TW Liu.

Firstly, Dr. TW Liu discussed about concept on theft of Intellectual Property (IP). People were aware someone who stole your tangible properties such as car, computer, credit card. But they were less aware on intangible properties such as inventive idea. He said that never told to other without protection if you had an inventive idea.

Then he described four IP Protection Options included:
i. Patents (Inventions such as processes and machines; Controversial areas such as business method and software)
ii. Copyright (Original work of authorship and Copyrightable matter such as software, manuals and company documents)
iii. Trademark (Word, phase or symbol for slogan, company name and product line)
iv. Trade Secret (Any Confidential Info that gives the owner competitive benefit or economic value)

After described the concept of IP Protection Options, Dr. Liu explained the process from Idea to Commercialization. He said “Commercialization is to make your idea profitable and valuable.”

Dr. Liu discussed some cases for capturing IP value such as GOOGLE acquired MOTOROLA and LENOVO acquired MOTOROLA MOBILITY both involved large amount of patents. He also analyzed the IP War between Apple and Samsung in US.
After Dr. Liu briefed the history of IP System since1474, he stated China set up its IP System since 1980. We started much later than western countries.

In 2000s, China focused on IP Strategies as follows:
2008 – Outline of National Intellectual Property Strategy of PRC
2010 – Innovation Knowledge Enterprise IP Management Practice (DB44/T 797-2010)
2013 – Enterprise Intellectual Property Management (GB/T 29490-2013)

Finally, Dr. Liu gave us an excise to understand the different among Patent, Trademark, Copyright and Trade Secret.

At the end, Dr. Walter Fung and Representative of Computing Dept. presented a souvenir to Dr. TW Liu.

Reference:
Department of Computing, PolyU - http://www.comp.polyu.edu.hk/en/home/index.php
CityU EngD Society - http://www.engd.org/home.aspx