BIP: Renowned Speakers Spice Up The First Day of BIP
03 December 2015
HONG KONG – “Companies should not stop after the stage of IP creation – they need to commercialize the invention and keep making new products,” said Allen Ma, chief executive officier at the Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks and moderator of a session on sustainable IP business models at the BIP Asia Forum here.
Panel speakers included Jürgen Koch, head of corporate intellectual property at Robert Bosch; Li Fushan, patent operations director at Tencent Holdings; and Ben Wang, head of patents at Unilever's China office. Ma and the panelists discussed how their companies have incorporated various effective IP business models to manage IPs in ways that create opportunities and contribute to the long-term growth of their respective companies.
“SMEs should not be fruatrated by their size, because multinational corporations tend to have rigid, non-flexible corporate structure or culture that often hinders them to create certain patents which can be complemented by SMEs otherwise,” said Wang.
The second plenary focussed on “Global Trends for IP Licensing Strategies.”
Moderated by Giustino de Sanctis, founder and CEO of Vectis, speakers David Upite, senior counsel of intellectual property at Procter & Gamble Company in greater China; Zhao Qishan, director of intellectual property at ZTE Corporation; and John LaBarre, senior counsel of intellectual property at Google in Silicon Valley; held an informative discussion on the current norms of IP licensing as well as trends which could facilitate efficient and profitable IP transactions.
“Entities can innovate with anyone even competitors,” said Upite.
As far as why IP-focussed companies need to keep innovating and maintain large patent portfolios, it is all because of innovation and investment protection, LaBarre said. “It is also a business strategy or an end (i.e. licensing out to others), as well as a way to deter aggression of competitors.”
