How to improve the conversion rate of patents;
1. Where are the difficulties in patent transformation?
1, the difficulty of patent transformation itself has a misunderstanding.
Not every patent is for conversion. Many domestic enterprises or individuals apply for patents in order to apply for patents, most of which are personal applications, and there are few strategic arrangements and planning considerations. Mature patent applications will have many strategic considerations, some of which are not to protect technology, but to prevent others from suing for infringement. Some patents are applied in combination, and their purpose is only to protect a core patented technology. Just as a trademark has a joint trademark and a defense registration, only one core patented technology is really used. Then the patent applied for is to prevent others from suing for infringement, and "holding the moon star" is not applied for implementation, so these patents do not need to be transformed.
2. It is difficult to transform patents, because some patents are untransferable.
The invention of perpetual motion machine, which violates the laws of nature, has attracted countless heroes to bend over. Huang Wei, a former national army, was defeated and captured in the Huaihai Campaign. After the amnesty, he became fascinated with the invention of perpetual motion machine. Nanjie Village in Henan Province also invested a lot of money to invent perpetual motion machines. Theoretically, the invention of perpetual motion machine cannot be patented. If you get a patent by luck for other reasons, then such a patent cannot be transformed. Because there is no substantive examination of utility model patents, many utility model patents actually copy other people's technology at a low level. The patentee has a utility model patent, which is to add a correction fluid device to the ballpoint pen. He firmly believes that his patented technology has great market prospects and high value. In fact, many identical patents can be retrieved in the patent database, so low-level duplicate patents have no conversion value. An old technician installed a solar water heater at home, but he didn't want to throw away the old gas water heater. The local cold and rainy climate often makes solar water heaters unable to work. The old technician is glad that he didn't throw away the old gas water heater. The old technician developed a device for switching between two water heaters, which effectively utilized the existing warm water in the solar water heater and reduced the use of gas. The old man applied for a patent. Now the solar water heater has its own electric heating function, which solves this problem more simply. Therefore, this patent is too strong to solve special problems under special environmental conditions, and its popularity and transferability are very poor. Technicians are intoxicated with the novelty of technological innovation, whether it is suitable for consumers or not, whether the price is suitable for market sales or not, and its practicability is extremely poor or does not meet the market requirements. This patented technology is inevitably difficult to transform because it has no market value.
3. It is difficult to transform patents, because some patents are too risky.
There are also various patents, such as non-service inventions. Most of the ideas invented by these inventors come from life practice, and their inventions have strong practicability. This kind of patent can be directly used in real life, and the transformation is relatively easy. Some service inventions directly aim at improving production technology and existing products, and such patents are also easy to transform. The forward-looking inventions of scientific research institutes, such as the Palo Alto Research Center of Xerox, invented many very advanced technologies, but they could not find the market direction and could not be transformed. In China, 1958 put forward wireless communication technology (the predecessor of mobile phone communication technology), but our mobile phone related technologies are all imported. The hi-tech of Palo Alto Research Center has hatched famous companies such as Apple, Microsoft and 3com, but the research center has not been transformed because of its advanced technology. What kind of products can this technology produce? Can this technology directly produce products? From technology to products, how much technical support is needed is unknown and uncertain, so the risk of transformation is great from a commercial point of view.
1, build a trading platform
The government has done a lot of work to solve the problem of patent transformation. Therefore, property rights trading centers or trading platforms are being established everywhere, with the purpose of building a bridge between patentees and patent users, so that those who need patents can find the patentee and the patentee's patent buyers, but the results are not great. In addition to the property rights trading center or trading platform established by the government, many non-governmental organizations are also trying to establish such a trading platform. Some patent agencies, while representing patents for patentees, are also helping these patents find buyers. This search method is relatively simple, that is, to set up a website and put all kinds of patents in a database, so that they can find their own patents from the demand. Now there are also special patent trading websites. This kind of online trading platform has a low operating cost and can maintain a certain profit, so it has gradually become active.
Whether it is a trading platform established by the government or a trading website established by the people, its function is basically to display and retrieve patents. The patent database is open and anyone can query it. The information of the patentee is also open in the patent database. It is easy for people who need a patent to retrieve the needed patent in the database, and it is also easy to find the information of the patentee and contact the patentee directly. The patentee can also find the potential demanders through the network and directly contact the demanders. The trading platform established at a high price can actually be realized free of charge on the Internet. Therefore, the author believes that the difficulty in cracking patent transformation does not lie in the information communication between buyers and sellers, so the difficulty in solving patent transformation cannot rely solely on establishing a trading platform.
2. Support professional auxiliary intermediaries
Last year, the world financial crisis spread to the southern coastal provinces, and a large number of migrant workers had to return home. With some capital accumulation and knowledge, these migrant workers no longer live a quiet life. How to make these anti-migrant workers stay is also something that local governments need to consider. Some places put forward to let these people start businesses, and the local industries are basically saturated, so they thought of patents and let these returning migrant workers create new industries with patented technology. This is a very good idea. However, this idea is also romantic. With the development of science and technology, the functions of products become more and more complicated. For example, the mobile phone is no longer the original tool for making calls, but integrates many functions such as photography, recording and radio, and each function involves many patents. A fully functional mobile phone contains thousands of patents, involving a considerable number of patentees. Of course, it is impossible for ordinary migrant workers to negotiate with so many patentees to buy these patents to produce mobile phones, even if they are fake versions. Few products can be produced by only one patent, and patents that may be involved in production also need to be licensed. Therefore, it should be as simple and practical as possible, so that migrant workers can buy it, and a single patent can realize production, and local materials can be used to produce and sell it locally. There are not many such patents. To buy a patent, you need to know the technical content of the patent and which technologies are suitable for your own purchase, which requires a group of people who know the technology to select these patented technologies.
In fact, many people have some spare money on hand and want to buy a patent for a project. But buying a patent is not as simple as buying machinery and equipment. How much is this patent worth? Neither the buyer nor the seller knows. In practice, patentees always expect too much, thinking that their patents can be sold for at least several million yuan. Of course, this price is not bought. Then an independent evaluation agency should be introduced to evaluate the value of the patent, so as to prevent the two sides from reaching an agreement because of the price factor. At present, the value evaluation of intellectual property rights is still relatively blank, especially for unimplemented patents, the value created by different people implementing the same patent is different, and the marginal income of patents will have an impact on the purchase cost. Patent evaluation requires not only financial evaluation, but also legal evaluation. There is a common misunderstanding that a patent is valid as long as it has a patent certificate, but it is not. There are many factors that affect the validity of patent, among which if the patent literature is not well written, it is likely that the patent is actually unprotected. Even if the patent is valid, it depends on the ownership, that is, whether the right holder can transfer or license it. In practice, there are many disputes over patent ownership, and there are still many legal issues that need to be checked by professional lawyers.
Buying a patent is a very professional matter, which requires the participation of technical, evaluation, legal and other talents to complete it well. If every property rights trading center or trading platform is equipped with these specialized talents, it is very unrealistic, and only these talents can participate in the form of intermediaries.
Step 3 guide inventors
Above, we have analyzed the difficulty of patent transformation, which is caused by the inherent problems of the patent itself. Because the patent itself is not practical and has no market value, it is destined to be difficult to transform. Poor practicality and low market value do not mean that there is no technical content. This kind of patent can be transformed to make it have market value. The author once received a patentee, and his invention was very good, which can effectively solve the problem of local processing of fresh fruit, avoid fruit rot caused by sales or climate, and keep fresh fruit extremely fresh. However, this technology cannot be popularized, and the author helps him analyze the reasons. This technology needs to invest more than 6.5438 million yuan of equipment, so among the potential consumers of this patent, the factory with processing capacity does not need it, because the factory itself has equipment, and the fruit seller will not buy it, and the price is unbearable. The author asked whether this product could be reduced in price. The inventor said it was simple. It can be reduced to less than 6,543,800 yuan, and farmers can also buy it at this price. The same technology changed the positioning of consumers and immediately showed the value of the market. We can give proper guidance to inventors through various information channels to make their inventions closer to the actual needs and more valuable, then patent transformation will be much easier.
4, the introduction of "technology venture capital"
Palo Alto Research Center had the most advanced technology and a large number of patents in the world at that time, but these technologies did not bring practical economic benefits to Xerox, the investor of the center, but were fully brought into play by enterprises separated from China and the West in this research, and world-famous companies such as Apple and Microsoft were cultivated. This phenomenon deserves our deep thought. Why doesn't Xerox use these patented technologies by itself? For very practical reasons, these patented technologies are too advanced. Xerox doesn't know where the market is and what business model it should use to develop. Huge uncertainty contains huge business risks. As a profit-oriented enterprise, of course, it will not take such operational risks. Why did the researchers in the center successfully transform these patented technologies after purchasing licenses from Xerox? Because these people are all powerful venture capital institutions, they have a keen sense of market, think that this patented technology has a good market prospect, and are willing to invest in the product transformation of this patented technology. For the original researchers, huge commercial risks have been borne by venture capital institutions, and they have the funds to improve the patented technologies, so the combination of technology and venture capital has realized the successful transformation of these patented technologies.
There are also venture capital institutions in China, but venture capital institutions are generally only interested in companies with good growth, give certain financial support during the critical period of company growth, and then get several times and dozens of times of returns from the stock market after the company goes public. In fact, venture capital can also start directly from technology investment. This kind of investment looks risky and takes a long time, but it has a high return and little investment. Maybe only a few million yuan, or even less. China has a successful case of venture capital in science and technology. Tsinghua Tongfang invested in a technology of a research group to be dissolved in Tsinghua University. At present, the products produced by this technology account for 70% of the global share, and the annual profit is as high as several hundred million. This product can be seen in airports and stations. It is a machine for checking packages. This is Tongfang Weishi. At present, China's policy supports the establishment of companies directly by patents, and some high-tech development zones give certain incubation funds, which is the first angel fund for the government to invest in science and technology. It is not enough to rely solely on the power of the government. Private capital should be encouraged to enter science and technology venture capital, so that the whole science and technology incubation market can play a role.