CityU IIPCC Entrepreneurship & Innovation Seminar

The IIPCC Hong Kong Chapter Workshop/Seminar Series: Entrepreneurship & Innovation was organized by IIPCC-HK and coorganized by CityU Business & Industrial Club (CUBIC) and Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks (HKSTP) on 28 Aug 2014 in Lecture Theatre 15 at CityU. The International Intellectual Property Commercialization Council (IIPCC) Hong Kong Chapter is a non-political, non-profit/social organization for promoting IP Commercialization Best Practices to do common good; serving the socio-economic interests of local community; focusing on decent job creations, entrepreneurship and SME innovations.
(There were many participants in this seminar tonight!)

The guest speaker was Mr. David Ai (Director of Knowledge Transfer Office, CityU and Co-Founder of IIPCC Hong Kong Chapter) and his presentation entitled “IP Valuation: How to Set a Price on the Intellectual Property (Your Books, her Music, their Patents)?” He stated that not all patents are created equal and it could be classified three types as follows:
1) Utility Model Patents (Germany, Japan, China)
2) Patent Applications (“patent pending”) have risks
3) Even Granted Patents are NOT 100% Solid

Then Mr. David Ai introduced the Friendly FRAND Principle to us. FRAND stated to Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory. Then the case of Motoral and Microsoft indicated what was reasonable in terms of licensing.
(Avoiding photo copyright, I replaced the children photo to our photo (David and I took inside Golden Egg in Science Park).)

Finally, Mr. David Ai concluded why it’s Hard to Build IP Markets (comparison with Normal Market) as following points:
1) 1 seller, few potential buyers (Many buyers & sellers)
2) Truly unique product (Standard replaceable product)
3) Buyers Have Various Needs and in Complex Scenarios (Similar needs)
4) Many complex terms (Few terms and easy to transact)
5) Seller is disadvantaged (Equal access to information)

After the talk, four panel speakers were invited for discussion as follows: (From Left)
1) Mr. Johnson Kong who is a board member of IIPCC-HK.
2) Ms. Peggy Cheung who is a solicitor and registered trade mark attorney.
3) Mr. David Ai who is a Director of Knowledge Transfer Office, CityU and Co-Founder of IIPCC Hong Kong Chapter
4) Mr. Al Kwok who is Co-Founder of IIPCC Hong Kong Chapter and expert in semiconductor industry.

During the discussion, Peggy told us about JV in China and she said the most important was due diligent. Moreover, she said trademark was a very high value asset. Then Johnson said Patent was not guaranteed but it was only starting. Hong Kong needed to build IP trading ecosystem and to educate public about IP protection concept.

Then Mr. Al Kwok presented the commercialization Process of an invention from Idea (Problem-solving) to R&D Solution to Prototype and then to Product/Service. In this chain, the IP Value would be from Little (need proof of concept) to Some (need product realization) to More (if proven value to customers) and then to Much more (if very scalable). He also discussed the internal design (meaning engineer or infra-structure of system) and external design (meaning interface of human being). Finally, he said top management should be made sure “Integrated Design Capability” included Marketability, Scalability, Robustness, Manufacturability, Resuability, Quality/Reliability and Testability, etc.

Reference:
IIPCC - http://www.tmbell.com/hongkong/aboutiipcc.php
HKSTP - http://www.hkstp.org
CUBIC - http://www6.cityu.edu.hk/kto/index.aspx?id=PG-1200038
20140620 - Distinguished Entrepreneur Series: Recipes for Success - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2014/06/distinguished-entrepreneur-series.html