High-value patent: the "Shanghai password" to activate the power of innovation source
-building a science and technology innovation center with global influence, creating a creation center, a transformation center and a protection highland for high-value patents.
Be the vanguard of reform and opening up and the pioneer of innovation and development. Over the years, Shanghai has continued to increase government guidance and investment, improve public welfare services, promote the transfer and transformation of patents, and build a creative center, transformation center and protection highland for high-value patents. Here, the trunk passenger plane C919 with completely independent intellectual property rights appeared in the sky, and China’s first lunar rover "Yutu" walked in the Moon Palace … The vision of an Asia-Pacific intellectual property center city is slowly being paved. How to grasp this great historical opportunity, better embrace innovation and promote transformation is a problem that everyone in Shanghai is thinking about. High-value patent, which contains the internal demand of continuous innovation and development, has become the "Shanghai password" to activate the driving force of innovation and win the initiative of development.
"Having a large number of high-value patents is a concentrated expression of a city’s innovation ability and competitiveness. One of the important symbols of Shanghai’s construction of a globally influential science and technology innovation center should be the creation center, transformation center and protection highland of high-value patents. Therefore, the cultivation of high-value patents is an important foundation and support for promoting the construction of a globally influential science and technology center in Shanghai. " Lu Guoqiang, director of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Office, said that in recent years, with the goal of building an Asia-Pacific intellectual property center city, Shanghai has vigorously implemented the intellectual property strategy, played a policy-oriented role, deepened reforms in all aspects of patent creation, application, protection, management and service, and strived to improve the quality of patents and deepen the "Shanghai value".
Encourage innovation and create value.
Large planes soar in the blue sky, with high-value patents as wings. This sentence is not a metaphor, but a true portrayal of the status of high-value patents in the "big country". C919 has adopted a large number of new technologies, new materials and new components from airframe structural parts to airborne system equipment, from nose test to tail composite material application, among which 102 key technological breakthroughs such as thrust reverser technology and active control technology have been made, which shows the overall scientific and technological strength and "China wisdom" of China’s aviation industry. Comac Shanghai Aircraft Design & Research Institute submitted 453 China patent applications, such as "fairing structure suspended in aircraft with wing crane layout" and "suspension structure with integrated propulsion system", around the nose, fuselage, wing and wing crane engine of C919, which marked a new height of "Creation by China" and attracted widespread attention from the international community. At present, C919 large passenger aircraft has 23 domestic and foreign users, including China International Airlines, and the total number of domestic and foreign orders has reached 570. International customers, such as General Electric Leasing Company of the United States, have become "buyers" of C919. Nie Xin, head of intellectual property of COMAC Shanghai Aircraft Design and Research Institute, said that COMAC Shanghai Aircraft Design and Research Institute has always insisted on quantity layout and quality win, promoted patent value orientation within the institute, promoted high-level patent creation, high-quality evaluation and high-value authorization, and built a competitive advantage with a high-value patent portfolio system. "We always insist on improving the research and development level from the forefront of innovation, establishing ourselves through high-value patents in foreign cooperation, and testing water through patents in new fields.With high-value patents in the domestic and foreign markets, through the patent value to highlight the value of the institute itself. "
If large enterprises and institutions with strong strength can "multiply" the accumulation of a large number of high-value patents, then small and medium-sized enterprises with flexible innovation methods can "play around" few but fine high-value patents, which is tantamount to "making an index". Shanghai Dianba New Energy Technology Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Dianba New Energy) is the best among the latter. Gu Qing, general manager of Electric Bus New Energy, told the reporter that at present, the company has 9 invention patents, 55 utility model patents and 2 design patents. These patent pieces are "swords", and the value they realize can be called "a small amount contains great energy". According to reports, the company’s patent for "an electric bus system" was submitted and granted in 2004, and the international patent application submitted through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) entered 21 countries and regions such as the United States, the European Union, Japan and Singapore. The patented technology can replace the battery for electric buses within 4 minutes, which has been widely used in Beijing Olympic Games, Shanghai World Expo and Guangzhou Asian Games, and has withstood the test of high density, large passenger flow and extreme weather. By the end of 2016, the company had achieved sales of about 200 million yuan only by selling charging and replacing power station equipment products converted from the above patents. Gu Qing said that the company has always adhered to development, research and development, and layout. Not only did it lay out early patents before research and development, but it also laid out improved patents in the process of technological improvement, inciting a vast market with a small number of patents with high value.
"High-value patents should first be high-quality patents, and the patented technology should be advanced and versatile. At the same time, the quality of patent writing is high and the scope of patent protection is wide." Lv Guoqiang believes that measuring whether a patent is a high-value patent should be multi-dimensional, and the technical level, writing quality and layout fields are indispensable. The "gestation" process before the birth of a patent determines whether it is a "fine variety" or a "weed", and the positive guidance for the creation of high-value patents has become one of the working hands of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Office. Lv Guoqiang introduced that in 2012, the Shanghai Patent Subsidy Measures was revised, which changed the original patent application fee and authorization fee from "full funding" to "partial funding" and changed from "funding upon application" to "funding after authorization", and focused on invention patents and foreign patents, effectively improving the quality of patents. At present, the number of effective invention patents in Shanghai has reached 90,000, and the maintenance rate of effective invention patents for more than five years ranks third in the country.
Strengthen application and realize value.
"The unit hired me as a manager, not to let me just queue up at the window to pay the annual fee." According to Cheng Leilei, head of intellectual property in the Scientific Research Department of Zhongshan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University, to tap the high value of patents, patent managers must first recognize their own value. Cheng Leilei told reporters that intellectual property managers in colleges and universities should give full play to their subjective initiative, not be satisfied with procedural "optional actions", but should assist front-line researchers to find the right direction of research and development, help them tap the value of achievements, and realize the effective transformation and application of patents. "Medical care is a knowledge-intensive industry with rich patent resources, but the patent technology transfer conversion rate of medical institutions in China does not match the existing technical level, and there is a significant gap with developed countries. To make the sleeping patent value alive, we must catch up, take various effective measures, quickly and effectively transform the latest achievements of medical research into clinical medical technologies and products, feed back the actual situation of clinical research to the laboratory, and create a’ two-way channel’ from laboratory to ward and from ward to laboratory, so as to popularize and socialize medical research achievements. " Cheng Leilei said that Zhongshan Hospital attaches great importance to the transfer and transformation of patents. As early as 2008, it set up a results management section in the hospital’s scientific research department to be responsible for the declaration, management and transformation of intellectual property projects. In order to maximize the value of the results, the hospital is managed by the scientific research department in a unified way, exploring valuable achievements from various scientific research projects at all levels, analyzing and sorting out the patented and patentable achievements, and avoiding the low-value patents that are patented for the sake of patents.Ensure timely application, authorization and transformation of truly valuable and high-value projects. At present, Sun Yat-sen Hospital has established six transformation modes, namely, directly transforming patents into enterprises, relying on technology transfer institutions of universities to transform patents, establishing cooperative institutions with local governments, jointly establishing cooperative institutions with enterprises to transform patents, transforming patents through university science parks and transforming patents through national engineering centers. According to the characteristics of different projects, the specific conditions and requirements of licensees or transferees, each patent can be operated flexibly and in multiple ways according to local conditions, so as to maximize its potential.
"The value of a patent lies not only in its meaning of property rights, but also in people." Feng Hongbin, head of the intellectual property expert group of Shanghai Institute of Aerospace Technology, believes that the key to cultivating high-value patents is to change ideas and cultivate awareness. As a space backbone base with multiple models of "missile, arrow, satellite and ship" and integrated military and civilian development, Shanghai Aerospace established the Shanghai Space Administration Patent Office (the predecessor of the Shanghai Space Administration Patent Center) as early as 1985, which is the only national defense patent agency in Shanghai. On this basis, the Intellectual Property Center of Shanghai Institute of Aerospace Technology was established in 2013 to realize the transformation of intellectual property management from macro management of units to fine management of projects. The relevant person in charge told the reporter that while undertaking the task of national defense and military industry, Shanghai Aerospace has implemented the national policy of "combining the military with the people", taking constantly adapting to and meeting the needs of the development of national defense science, technology and industry and the development of national economy as the fundamental starting point, focusing on national major scientific and technological special projects such as manned spaceflight, lunar exploration project and high marks, as well as strategic emerging industrial projects such as photovoltaics and lithium batteries, and fully tapping the core technological value of military units. Shanghai Space Power Research Institute, a subsidiary of Shanghai Space Power Research Institute, undertakes the task of developing space power system and related stand-alone machines, and at the same time, vigorously develops civil new energy technologies such as power lithium-ion batteries, and promotes the transformation of innovation achievements. It has invested 15.1 million yuan in Shanghai Space Power Company with two patents for power lithium-ion batteries. Shanghai Aerospace Equipment Manufacturing General Factory has developed a series of friction stir welding equipment in combination with civil needs.It has provided products for dozens of domestic enterprises, with annual sales exceeding 40 million yuan. At the beginning of the lunar rover project, which is well-known as "Yutu", the intellectual property work plan and funds were included in the unified model management. The model team submitted a total of 55 patent applications, and established a patent database containing more than 1,500 domestic and foreign patent documents, which was supplemented and updated regularly, supporting the subsequent deep space exploration argumentation such as Mars, and the patent achievements were expanded and applied to the civil field, making the patent value everywhere from "heaven" to "human".
"High-quality patents can become veritable high-value patents by achieving considerable economic and social benefits through transformation and implementation, licensing transfer, investment operation, and litigation rights protection." Lu Guoqiang said that the Shanghai Intellectual Property Office has guided enterprises and institutions to pay attention to the cultivation of high-value patents by helping enterprises and institutions to transfer high-value patent achievements at high prices. Shanghai has set up a patent award for invention and creation, which is included in the municipal government’s award projects. It is evaluated once every three years, and more than 40 patent projects are awarded each time, and each project can be awarded a maximum of 100,000 yuan. The award-winning project not only has high patent quality, but also has been transformed and implemented, with good economic benefits, and is a veritable high-value patent. At the same time, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Office has vigorously promoted the construction of patent alliances. At present, patent alliances have been established in the fields of digital TV, motors and systems, medical devices, oil exploration equipment, etc. Leading enterprises have set up patent pools for related core patents, and carried out patent licensing, operation and collaborative research and development, so that high-value patents of different units can be interconnected and full of vitality.
Reform service and dig deep into value
"Roads and bridges are connected, and all industries are prosperous." In the view of Shan Xiaoguang, a professor at Tongji University’s Shanghai Institute of International Intellectual Property, the government should set up a communication channel for patent information, so that a large number of silent patents in universities and research institutes can "live" and realize their market value. Shan Xiaoguang pointed out that in 2016, the total number of invalid patents in colleges and universities in China was nearly 68,000, and a large number of patents were not transformed, even after they were granted rights, which was a serious waste of the value of scientific research results. Many researchers are limited by the policy orientation in the past, and submit patent applications only for job title evaluation and award declaration, etc., and their achievements are of low value and lack the value of transformation and application. In his view, the government should strengthen policy guidance, pave the way for bridging the gap between researchers and the market, and patent the essence of market economy and promote more and better achievements to realize value through transformation.
In recent years, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Office has frequently been a "matchmaker", bridging the gap between enterprises, institutions and patent service agencies, and deeply exploring the patent value. Shanghai Intellectual Property Office specially arranges funds to support enterprises to carry out patent navigation and patent evaluation projects. In the process of project implementation, the enterprise makes clear the direction of technology development in the industry through in-depth patent retrieval analysis, improves R&D and patent mining, actively develops patent layout, avoids the risk of patent infringement, supports and trains enterprises to carry out high-quality and high-value patent portfolio layout, and enhances patent competitiveness. As a frontline worker of patent service, Zhang Jingjie, general manager of Shanghai Xinhao Intellectual Property Agency Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Xinhao), has a deep understanding of the value of this service. She told reporters that adhering to the purpose of laying out high-value patent portfolio for enterprises, the company always attaches great importance to the writing quality of each patent application document, and starts from the source to ensure the protection and quality of each patent application, so that the patent portfolio of enterprises can truly reflect "high value" in actual intellectual property rights. On this basis, the company has made perfect patent analysis and patent strategy for enterprises for many years, laid out core patents with high market value and low substitutability, and attached importance to the layout of peripheral patents. In 2009, Xinyong made a 140-page boiler technology patent analysis for an enterprise in Shanghai in eight months, from technical details to R&D process, forming a comprehensive patent layout analysis, showing enterprises the tangible market prospects of related patent technologies.Enterprises can avoid intellectual property risks at home and abroad through patent layout in related fields, and at the same time produce a large number of high-quality patent applications. In 2016, the patent application rate of Xinhao Agency reached 63.43, ranking second in Shanghai. "Service organizations must generate value to society and cannot fall into low-level homogenization competition." Zhang Jingjie said that only by helping clients realize the value of patents, allowing enterprises and institutions to see the value of patents, and jointly enhancing the importance of high-value patents, can a virtuous circle in the field of patent services be formed.
Shanghai Rongzhi Intellectual Property Agency Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Rongzhi) is a model to help enterprises "gold rush" through high-value services. Under the organization of intellectual property organizations at all levels in Shanghai, Rong Zhi undertook the roadshow of intellectual property rights in Pudong New Area, Shanghai, and combined with specific projects, vividly demonstrated the value of high-value patent portfolio for participating enterprises and institutions, and realized the precise docking of patentees, technology demanders and investment and financing institutions. "In our view, high-value patents give R&D personnel new technical enlightenment in technology research and development, further improve the technical value of innovative achievements, and form high-quality, high-level patents or patent portfolios with great economic benefits and market strategic significance. In it, service organizations must do’ big waves to wash sand, wash away gold, improve gold, and build gold for treasure’. " Yu Xiaojing, general manager of Rongzhi, vividly compared the cultivation of high-value patents to the creation of jewelry: searching, excavating and improving the existing technical solutions of enterprises and institutions to form a higher-value solution, just like finding pearls in a clam; Through the improved scheme, the R&D personnel will be inspired to develop a better scheme, just like polishing the luster of pearls; Through high-quality document writing and perfect layout, the patent achievements will be transferred to the downstream to maximize the value, just like inlaying pearls into jewelry. From a penniless clam to priceless jewelry, it is the significance of cultivating high-value patents. Yu Xiaojing introduced that in the process of screening and layout practice of high-value patents, Rong Zhi gradually explored a set of innovations fromThe "seven-step patent precise operation" model of "retrieval-analysis-audit-layout-transfer/licensing-re-layout-linking industries" integrates the upstream and downstream technologies of the industrial chain, and the upstream demand drives the downstream industrialization, and the downstream demand promotes the upstream secondary research and development, forming a benign interactive circulation mechanism, thus realizing the precise operation of innovation transfer and transformation, and realizing the docking of patents and investment and financing industries.
With the support of Shanghai Intellectual Property Office, more and more patents realize their financial value through pledge or insurance. As an important intangible asset, high-value patents are increasingly favored by financial institutions. This year, Shanghai Intellectual Property Office has actively promoted patent pledge financing and insurance, and provided policy support for patent pledge financing in all districts and counties. Pudong New Area, Minhang District, Xuhui District, Fengxian District, Yangpu District, Huangpu District and Jing ‘an District have successively launched patent pledge financing and patent insurance pilot projects. From 2014 to 2016, Shanghai realized patent pledge financing of more than 2.7 billion yuan and pledged more than 500 patents; A total of more than 1,200 patents were insured, with a premium of 1.75 million yuan. Patents are intangible, but the patent value is not illusory, but heavy real money. The higher the value, the higher the return.
"We plan to develop a set of high-value patent evaluation system, screen and evaluate effective invention patents through a scientific evaluation index system, and implement stronger policy support for high-value patents to guide enterprises and institutions to pay attention to patent quality and the cultivation and layout of high-value patents. Through several years of hard work, the proportion of high-quality and high-value patents has been greatly increased. " Lv Guoqiang said that the improvement of patent quality and the cultivation of high-value patents are a systematic project and a long-term task in the process of building Shanghai into an Asia-Pacific intellectual property center city. In the next step, Shanghai will further increase investment in R&D, strengthen cooperation and collaborative innovation in Industry-University-Research, enhance the innovation ability of enterprises and institutions, and provide technical support for the cultivation of high-value patents; Further strengthen the professional training of patent agents, improve the quality of patent agents, and provide legal protection for the cultivation of high-value patents; Further strengthen patent operation, promote the implementation of patent transformation, transfer license, investment in shares, pledge insurance, etc., realize patent value and provide market protection for the cultivation of high-value patents; Further improve the patent support policy, increase the support for high-value patents, clarify the policy orientation, and provide policy guarantee for the cultivation of high-value patents. Innovative Shanghai, the future can be expected. (Intellectual Property News reporter Wang Yu Sun Di correspondent Nie Li)