The National Applied Research Laboratories (NARL) yesterday said it has integrated data from international research databases and the US Patent Database to create an Intellectual Property Citation Index (IPCI) which can help link advanced research results to industrial development.
NARL director Chen Liang-gee (陳良基) said that when he visited AT&T’s Bell Laboratories several years ago, several of the laboratory’s engineers told him they were studying his research publications to apply the technology into a picture-phone they were developing at the time.
He said that when he returned to Taiwan, he noticed that AT&T’s picture-phone was sold for more than NT$30,000 per handset.
Chen said he realized that research was being done in Taiwan, but the results were being used by the world’s best companies in other countries, and then sold back to Taiwan.
“Although the number of Taiwanese research publications and publication citations is high, somehow the profits of the related industries have not improved significantly,” he said.
“We wanted to figure out whether my experience with the picture-phone was just an individual case or a general phenomenon,” he said.
The IPCI was created to better understand the input of advanced research results into related industries and has collected the data of more than 4.39 million US patents registered between 1976 and last year and the science research publications in Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science.
Through analysis of the IPCI, Fan Chin-yuan (樊晉源), associate research fellow at NARL’s Policy Research Division, said the influence of the nation’s research results on the development of the overseas business sector has increased.
Fan said that 496 Taiwanese research citations were used in US patents in 2001, increasing to 3827 citations last year.
The index also showed that Taiwan ranked about 15th in the percentage of research result citations used in US patents, showing the quality of Taiwan’s advanced research, he said.
Lin Bou-wen (林博文), director of NARL’s Science and Technology Policy Research and Information Center, said NARL hopes the index will help Taiwanese companies recognize the quality and input potential of domestic academic research and help the academic field to better understand how to link research results to the needs of the industrial sector.
CARGO LOSS: About 50 containers at the stern of the ‘Ever Lunar’ cargo ship went overboard, prompting the temporary closure of the port and disrupting operations Evergreen Marine Corp, Taiwan’s largest container shipper, yesterday said that all crew members aboard the Ever Lunar (長月) were safe after dozens of containers fell overboard off the coast of Peru the previous day. The incident occurred at 9:40am on Friday as the Ever Lunar was anchored and waiting to enter the Port of Callao when it suddenly experienced severe rolling, Evergreen said in a statement. The rolling, which caused the containers to fall, might have been caused by factors including a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in Russia, poor winter sea conditions in South America or a sudden influx of waves,
The Ministry of Culture yesterday officially launched the “We TAIWAN” cultural program on Osaka’s Nakanoshima sandbank, with the program’s mascot receiving overwhelming popularity. The cultural program, which runs from Aug. 2 to 20, was designed to partner with and capitalize on the 2025 World Expo that is being held in Osaka, Japan, from April 13 to Oct. 13, the ministry said. On the first day of the cultural program, its mascot, a green creature named “a-We,” proved to be extremely popular, as its merch was immediately in high demand. Long lines formed yesterday for the opening
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
RSS