Fostering Innovation or Exploiting Local Ideas?
Aggregated Source: China HearsayThe Wall Street Journal online has this feature article on Intellectual Ventures, a firm from Washington State that operates as a sort of patent VC fund:
[Intellectual Ventures] hopes to raise as much as $1 billion to help develop and patent inventions, many of them from universities in Asia.
The move could help the firm, formed seven years ago to purchase patents and help inventors dream up new ones, expand its already-vast store of patents.
Makes me wonder how the firm would be treated over here. On the one hand, if they are funding local innovation, that puts it squarely in line with Hu Jintao’s "Innovation Society" policies. Moreover, funding through universities and related spin-offs is a good way to get on the inside quickly, although the bureaucracy is quite an obstacle at the outset.
On the other hand, the company’s business model suggests that after these patentable ideas are developed, they will be assigned to Intellectual Ventures. Certainly possible under the law, but definitely not encouraged. Taking innovation offshore runs exactly counter to Chinese development policy, and unfortunately for Intellectual Ventures, the assignment of patentable inventions from a domestic enterprise to an offshore owner must be approved by the government.
Original URL: Click here to visit original article
Copyright China Hearsay
Print This Post
|
Email This Post
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...