National Science Council (NSC) Minister Cyrus Chu (朱敬一) yesterday suggested five concepts for the development of intellectual property to improve the nation’s competitive power in the global market.
At a pre-meeting symposium of the ninth National Science and Technology Conference, organized by the council in Taipei, Chu shared his ideas with academics and heads of information and communications technology and machinery manufacturing companies.
“Taiwan’s ability to obtain patents is one of the highest in the world, ranking No. 4 or 5 in the quantity of patents obtained each year,” Chu said. “But we have to pay a total of about NT$17 billion [US$585 million] on patent royalties each year, which is completely out of proportion.”
Using a weapons metaphor, Chu laid out five “battle” strategies — labeled minefields, machine guns, long-shots, strategic missiles and guerrilla — designed to break through the current situation of high patent output, but an unfavorable balance of income and expenditure.
The “minefields” strategy not only prevents infringement by other companies, but also focuses on support available to companies in infringement cases.
The “machine guns” strategy regards strategic deployment of industrial chains — developing new industries through technology development, fund management and intellectual property purchasing.
Chu said that “long-shots” was about the government giving assistance to early-stage potential investments with accompanying high risk, where failure rates may be high, but the total effects remain positive due to a small number of successful investments.
The “strategic missiles” strategy refers to spontaneous innovative ideas from academia for which the government can provide funding for development, and the “guerrilla” strategy is a concept of creating a friendly national environment for intellectual property, in which more education is provided to the public about intellectual property rights and obtaining patents, amendments to the Trade Secrets Act (營業秘密法) and also mechanisms for encouraging entrepreneurship.
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