PolyU Public Seminar on Innovation and Patent

The public seminar entitled "Innovation and Patent" was organized by the Faculty of Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University on 10th April 2015. The seminar was one of series innovation activities of the Faculty of Engineering, PolyU.

In the beginning, Professor H. C. MAN (Dean of Faculty of Engineering, PolyU) gave welcome speech. He said that many people had mis-understanding the innovation which must be very high technology. However, innovation would be happened every day. We needed to know how to protect it. Therefore, the first seminar in innovation series was about Innovation and Patent.

Then Prof. Man introduced two guest speakers and they were Dr. Lewis Luk and Ms. Chan Lai Kiu. They bio were showed as follows.

The first speaker was Dr. Lewis Luk (President, Hong Kong Institute of Patent Attorneys (HKIPA)) and his topic named “Apple vs Samsung (Overview)”. He said once you owned a patent, any company could claim you.

Then Dr. Luk brief the Patent War raised by Apple. The network diagram showed smartphone competitor patent suits. Most of lawsuits come from Apple! He mentioned Apple vs Samsung over 50 cases in at least 9 countries included US, Korea, Japan, France, Italy, UK, Germany, Netherlands and Australia.

In US, “Apple 1” claims with Samsung Galaxy were briefed. Those claims included trade dress, trademarks, and functions (e.g. bounce-back, single and multi-touch, Slide to Unlock, Unified Search, etc.).

Patent War had several motivations included Principle, Damages, Injunction and Licensing. After that Dr. Luk introduced US International Trade Commission (ITC) Exclusion Order and its advantages included speed (within 15 months) and Broad Injunctive Remedies, but its disadvantages were no money damages and no jury trials. However, District Court – Injunctive Relief could be lifted and case tried again, for money damages.

Finally, Dr. Luk introduced “Overview of Current Patent System in HK” to us. It separated into Standard Patents (max. 20 yrs) and Short-Term Patents (max. 8 yrs). For Standard Patents, a re-registration system based on a patent granted by of of the 3 “Designated Patent Offices” included the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of PRC, UK Patent Office and European Patent Office (EPO for patents designating UK. But HK Patents Registry did not conduct “Substantive Examination”! For Short Term Patents, it was also no “Substantive Examination”, moreover, it needed to prove the validity in court.
At the end, Dr. Luk advised “Before design your product, please search Patent first!” and he hope that Hong Kong could issue original IP and got Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) of PRC.


The second speaker was Ms. Chan Lai Kiu (Owner of arQstudio) and her topic named “My Creative ventures and IP issues”. Firstly, she briefed her background and worked as Architect in P&T for 22 years.

She shared her creative venture included architect, Art & Design, teaching, writing, exhibition design / curatorship and Retail business.

Then she shared many her designs on architect. She mentioned her previous boss (pass away) Mr. Peter Lee who asked her to design a building which could enhance air quality in Causeway Bay.

She said architect normally designed specific to sites and client’s requirements and seldom had issues of IP. She tried many different things and used 3D printing as following diagram.

Finally, she concluded that a good innovation was not worked by you only but it needed “Cross-Over”!

Reference:
HKIPA - http://www.hkipa.org.hk/
arQstudio - http://www.arqstudio.com.hk/