The IP Factor

Thursday and Friday are the Jewish New Year, commemorating the creation of the world, and God’s dominion thereover. It is also a time when, according to Jewish tradition, everyone is judged for the year ahead.

I take this opportunity to wish all readers a year of peace and prosperity, health and happiness. Shana Tova!

Please note, JMB, Factor & Co will be closed over the holiday, as will the Israel Patent Office.

Filing deadlines in Israel will be extended until Sunday 2nd October 2011.

I note with some bemusement that the Chinese Patent Office is closed for a national holiday from 1 October 2011.

Why bemusement, well it seems that patent deadlines are extended until 10 October 2011, but trademark deadlines only until 8 October 2011.

One wonders why the different departments have different lengthed national holidays?

Is it to do with confusion regarding the new moon, or is it something totally different? Anyone able to enlighten?

 

Of the many ideas I heard at the Inoxcell IP Monetization and Finance Conference in Hong Kong, organized by Jeffery Teh, perhaps the most interesting was a presentation by Peter Cheung, the Director of Intellectual Property for the Government of Hong Kong. Peter would like to see Hong Kong become the location of an international IP Exchange. Essentially his idea is that as patents increasingly become tradable entities, there is an increasing need for a forum for IP trading and for complimentary professional skills such as valuations and the like. Bilingual, Cosmopolitan Hong Kong, with its expertise in providing services, particularly in banking, accountancy and other financial industries, which has traditionally been the gateway into China from the West, and the gateway to the West for the Chinese, – by far the most interesting player in the IP market, is ideally positioned and ripe to support such a venture.

The idea has a lot of appeal. I think the stigma of the troll is becoming a thing of the past. There is a need for a market in which companies looking to purchase IP, whether for defensive purposes, or to aggressively attack competitors, should be able to discover what is available and to make offers. To better match vendors of IP assets with potential customers, it would appear that such a market would have value. Clearly facilitating the sale of a patent or a portfolio to the party most interested in purchasing it, has utilitarian value and seems the best distribution of resources. Nevertheless, one feels that there is still a lack of reasonable models for evaluating IP. Ocean Tomo holds IP auctions. More discrete patent brokerages like ICAP use their networks to identify potential clients and, working on a percentage, have an interest in identifying the highest bidder.

I find this fascinating. Not least because, as a magician, I enjoy creating assets from ideas, creating intangible products of real value by describing inventions, claiming them and then prosecuting patent applications.
One of the questions clients often ask me regarding China, is whether patents can be upheld there. I met a charming young lady, Ms Angela Or, who works for Philips, collecting revenue from the licensing of their patents to Chinese firms. She assures me that the system works.

There were a number of monetization presentations that provided food for thought, and will probably be related to elsewhere.

Another interesting presentation I heard was from Fabrice Mattel, the managing director of the Thai office of Rouse & Co. an international IP firm. Mr Mattel believes passionately in the rights of indigenous populations to benefit from their biodiversity resources. He lectured with a great deal of conviction and gave miscellaneous examples such as how the rubber plant was stolen from Brazil and introduced into Malaysia which has a virtual monopoly on the rubber market.

I couldn’t help thinking about how the US should sue the rest of the world for tobacco and the potato, both stolen by Walter Raleigh in an act of blatant bio-piracy. Then again, one could sue Native American tribes for causing the Irish Potato Famine and for lung cancer. The breadfruit could be tried for causing a naval mutiny. I am not sure to what extent plant resources should be considered ethnic heritage, but I found the lecture enjoyable, even if not convincing. Certainly it made a nice change from the run of the mill IP stuff.

Particularly useful was a presentation by Dr Liao Cheng Wei, the director of the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office. Dr Wei detailed various ways of accelerating Taiwan prosecution based on developments in other jurisdictions.

This was a small conference where the various participants spent a couple of days together and got to know one another. It was a lot of fun, fairly well organized and very informative.

We were priveleged to attend day two of 2nd China Patent Counsel Conference in Shanghai, a two day event that was very well organized by Glorious Cheng of the JFPS.

It seems that Chinese patent attorneys are interested in learning as much as networking. There were lectures in Chinese and English, both with simultaneous translations. I found the English translations of Chinese lectures, really excellent. From the surprise expressed by one of the Chinese participants, I suspect that the not all translators from English into Cantonese were as competent.

The Chinese IP-Conferencer seems younger than his Western counterpart, and more serious. There were fewer exhibitors, and the swag was mostly disks-on-keys, stapler removers, and other more work related stuff. I am not sure how this is best explained.

Is it that:

1. The Conference was simply smaller than INTA, so the exhibition was smaller
2. Chinese patent attorney is less sophisticated than his Western counterpart
3. The Chinese patent attorney is more sophisticated than his Western counterpart
4. Touristy things made in China have no attraction to IP Professionals also made in China
5. Not travelling overseas, and often not leaving the same city, there is no need to bring back souvenirs for the kids
6. Having less children, there is less need to collect gimmicky stuff for them
7. All of the above
8. None of the above

The talks were informative. Lunch looked fascinating, and the shrimpy things looked back from their platters with fascination as well. I enjoyed my raw cherry tomatoes and bean sprouts and looked forwards to visiting Chabad for supper. I did rather enjoy a sort of miniature, seedless mango, served chilled in the coffee break, that could be eaten skin and all.

The event was well organized. It was a shame that we missed the first day, which apparently was slightly better attended.

I picked up all sorts of tips regarding contracting Chinese firms to manufacture, the Korean system, the differences between Mainland China and Taiwan with regards to IP, etc. Perhaps the most important lesson I took back with me was that the Chinese are taking IP seriously. They pay licensing fees, establish patent consortiums between non-competing entities with complimentary technologies to establish defensive patenting strategies, and have sophisticated, knowledgeable IP professionals.

The organizers provided a book of the Power Point Presentations, and the material on disk as well. I hope to attend future conferences, and will try to attend both days of such events.

 

As we were in Hong Kong we continued to Shanghai for the second day of a two-day conference there, arriving at 1 am on Wednesday, and flying home Thursday afternoon. Shanghai Express!

Flying Dragonair from Hong Kong to Pudong Airport in Shanghai, we did not have Kosher food, and were not exactly surprised. However, the air-hostesses gave us fresh fruit and we could enjoy the Haagen Dazs ice cream that all passengers received for their just desserts.

At Shanghai airport we had to queue in the Foreigner line. I’m not foreign, I’m British, I thought imperiously. Like the Cheshire Cat, I decided that either I was foreign or everyone else was. That as may be, unlike Hong Kong where many, many people speak fluent English, Shanghai is very much China. In a two-day whirlwind business trip, my perceptions changed. I realized that there are very many more Chinese than English or Israelis. Most people are Asian. At 5′ 11″, and weighing in at about three times the average Chinese man, I stuck out, if not like a sort of Gulliver in Lilliput, perhaps like a Kenyan Maasai in Jerusalem.

There may be rural parts of China with paddy fields and people in shallow conical hats with pigtails, but Shanghai is nothing like that. Shanghai is vast and ultramodern. I am sure that rural Chinese visiting a metropolis like Shanghai for the first time have a culture shock larger than that of the Kibbutznik visiting Tel Aviv for the first time, but even compared to New York, Shanghai is simply enormous.

We arrived late at night, and I went to an ATM to withdraw some local currency. Without too much resistance, allowed some nice saleswoman to ‘help us’ get to our hotel, by reserving us a hotel limousine. It cost 3 times as much as a taxi would, but there was change from $100, and it was comfortable. This was the first and last time that I was ‘had’ by the locals, who seemed more honest than touristivores in other places I’ve visited. Even the sales lady wasn’t exactly dishonest. The limousine she rented me was indeed a large roomy vehicle. It was worth what we paid for it. A taxi would, simply have been 1/3 of the price.

We got to the hotel in the early hours and went to bed. The following morning, we joined the conference that was the reason for our trip. Unlike INTA, it was clear that Chinese conference goers are interested in learning. The talks were excellent. There was simultaneous translation. Few freebies for the kids though. I didn’t think of requesting that the organizers arrange Kosher food, so I dined on bean sprouts, tomato and lettuce, whilst the other conventioners ate oysters, prawn, barbecued pork ribs, and various other food.

One of the participants was an Israeli Lawyer whose wife worked for the Chabad House, and after the conference, and having over-dosed on pineapple and melon which seem to have opposite effects on my dietary system, we went to the Jewish Center, otherwise known as Chabad House. The steak and chips, and the pita bread both compared favorably with similar food purchased in San Francisco. A very helpful Israeli studying Chinese who worked at the front desk gave some advice about what we could do that evening and the following morning, and despite the fact that we were 36 hours in Shanghai, we managed to get a taste of the city.

Talking of taste, if I had thought of it, I bet I could have ordered Kosher food from Chabad at the conference. As it was, I simply explained to my dining companions that my brother used to be bigger than me, and that by only eating bean sprouts and tomatoes, had lost about 100 Kg. It seemed easier than explaining about Kosher food.

Aharon wore a baseball cap to wonder around the city, thinking that by so doing, he didn’t stand out. He’s a head taller than the average Chinese, and who wears baseball caps except Jews not wanting to stand out?

We went to the Pearl Market where I bought some silky things and a new leather brief case, whilst Aharon purchased a string of pearls for his wife. The prices are good and the produce seems good as well. Despite me coming 30 minutes before the placed closed, some of the sales ladies explained that I was the first visitor of the day and entitled to a special discount. It is clear that they have some English patter but don’t really talk the language.

We went on to visit the Bund, which is a sort of Blackpool on Yangtze. Having seen San Francisco from the sea, and Hong Kong from Kowloon, I am a little blasé about impressive city-scapes. Nevertheless, the pearl tower is attractive. The idea of going to the top gave me vertigo, so we opted to take the tunnel under the river instead. This was an experience that can best be described as Asian Naff. Bubble cars like aquaria go along one track and back along the other, but to pass the time, a range of images are projected onto the tunnel walls and roof. Some sections are lit up with lasers and others with fluorescing wires; the overall effect is a little like a carnival ghost-train that was never meant to thrill. I got a little tired trying to explain to street merchants that I did not want a battery operated laser pointer, but their beams were actually fairly impressive and not expensive. The laser would be useful for physics demonstrations but I think laser light is not an appropriate toy for the kids.

We went on to the pedestrian walkway. Much like the way the six lane trunk roads put Israel into perspective, the pedestrian walkway was a little wider, a lot longer, and more impressive than Ben Yehuda precinct in Jerusalem. Perhaps the best way to describe it would be as a shiny granite-lined Rothschild Boulevard stretching the length of the Ayalon. I found the men siding up to me, offering me a massage by pretty Chinese ladies a little tiresome. It was a little refreshing when someone actually offered sex Chinese ladies. I tried to explain that I didn’t think I could cope with six as I was still jet lagged, and suggested three or four only, but I am not sure he understood me. We sat down to rest our legs, and a smartly dressed lady, asked if she sit nearby. It wasn’t my bench, so I acquiesced. Either she liked foreign men, or was working late. Class act, but not my thing, so we got up and moved on. Even this seedier side of the tourist industry seemed more modern and civilized than South Tel Aviv, but, assuming my wife wouldn’t want transmitted diseases, didn’t explore this side of Shanghai, so went back to the hotel room with my brother.

Coming from Israel, the lack of kids is noticeable and sad. People seemed generally happy though. I wonder if the natives would consider the average Israeli family of 2-3 children primitive, or lucky? We have three kids, which is well below the average of my West Bank village which has an average of 5 kids per family.

It would have been nice to see the Old Synagogue and to tour Jewish Shanghai, seeing the old port where some 20,000 refugees escaped the Holocaust, to one of the few open ports in the world. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time, however. Next time – and hopefully there will be a next time. Hopefully with the wife and kids as well.

The following day, we used a crib card from Chabad to visit the Old Town on the way back to the airport. This was somewhere to take photos that looked picturesque and Chinese as imagined in the West. For about NIS 20 ($6 US) we left the cab on the meter, and told the driver to pick us up 30 minutes later. The driver could have a smoke and we could wander the streets, see some traditional shadow puppets, yet more silk and jade, and go to the famous Yuyuan Gardens.

Fascinating. like every other big city, Shanghai has its China Town, and this was it. Impressive archways, gabled wooden roofs, dragons, Chinese restaurants, and the ubiquitous Starbucks and Mc Donalds of course. Give it a couple more years and all metropolises world-wide will look the same. We spent about 15 minutes in the Yuyuan Chinese gardens, with their pools of carp. In Israel, carp feed us. In China people, feed the carp. Go figure. The gardens deserve 2-3 hours to enjoy the tranquility, but we had a plane to catch.

The plane from Hong Kong to Shanghai was small and cramped. On the way back, we had seats in an Airbus. Pleasantly surprised that our request for Kosher food on the flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong was available, we enjoyed a Kedassia Hermolis meal from Wembley, London, where I used to live 35 years ago. I reckon the meal took about 35 hours to from when it was made to when it reached me. Partly frozen, nevertheless, an enjoyable meal of grilled salmon, rice and spring beans, chocolate cake, etc.

Plenty of leg room and a South China Daily News – which is bigger and more impressive than the Jerusalem Post in a way that Shanghai is bigger and more impressive than Tel Aviv.

In Hong Kong airport, apart from writing this blog article, I had time for a massage, or, to be more accurate, I had a massage to pass the time. Shiatsu on the legs and feet, and then a back massage, fully dressed, in a chair. The massage parlour was a nice, clean, unisex facility. Maybe I misinterpreted the men that came up to me on the pedestrian walkway? Maybe they were offering unisex massages and I simply misinterpreted?

China is a friendly place. There is what to see. I hope to visit China again and to have time to site-see, hopefully to see more than just the cities, but the country side as well.

I’ll be back.