84,000 global applications, high-quality patents have become the core competitiveness of ZTE.
Digital transformation enables information to be disseminated more quickly and more widely around the world, which in turn prompts innovative companies to invest more in patent layout and regard patent layout as a core competitiveness.
ZTE has been practicing the strategy of taking high-quality patent layout as the core competitiveness of the company. Up to now, ZTE has more than 84,000 global patent applications and has accumulated about 42,000 globally authorized patents over the years. Among them, there are 4572 chip patent applications and about 1990 authorizations, and the main countries and regions of chip patent layout include: Australia, Brazil, Russia, Canada, Europe, Indonesia, India, Japan, South Korea, the United States, etc. Since the first overseas patent application, after 20 years, ZTE has carried out patent layout in more than 55 countries and regions overseas. The number of 5G standard patent declarations ranks among the top five in the world.
ZTE's patent leader said that patent layout for its own technological innovation has long become the most important way for global innovation companies to promote technical solutions and protect their own innovative achievements.
Intellectual property rights have entered the full operational stage
Tong Xin, chief licensing officer of ZTE, believes that for companies that invest a lot of money and technology research and development of innovative technologies, on the one hand, they can use digital transformation to spread and promote their technological innovation achievements more widely, but on the other hand, these technological innovations, as intangible wisdom achievements, are also more likely to be directly used by others under the tide of digital transformation and cannot be effectively protected, as well as corresponding reasonable compensation. As the object of legal system and national coercive force, the essence of patented technology is to give technological innovators a system that can disclose technological innovation programs in exchange for legally obtaining reasonable benefits and compensation from all entities using their technological innovation programs within a certain period of time.
Correspondingly, the quantity, quality and breadth of a company's patent layout are often an important embodiment of its creativity, influence and core technological competitiveness.
In addition to the accumulation of intellectual property rights, the quality of ZTE's intellectual property rights has also been widely recognized, known as the Oscar of the patent industry - China Patent Award selection has won a number of honors, is the communication industry's most award-winning enterprises: in history won 9 gold, 2 silver, 36 excellent, of which in 2020 is the only Chinese patent gold medal winner in the communications industry.
Tong Xin said that ZTE protects its own technological innovation through patents while respecting the technological innovation of other entities, and has reached cross-licensing with many rights holders in the industry. In addition, ZTE has successfully responded to more than 300 patent litigation cases around the world so far.
Now, in the period when ZTE is leading the development of 5G, ZTE's intellectual property rights have also entered the stage of full operation, and strive to obtain reasonable returns for the company according to the company's years of technological innovation and patent accumulation, thereby laying the foundation for the industry to create more innovative achievements.
Patent Fees: Feed back a new round of innovation
Speaking of the phenomenon of patent fees, Tong Xin believes that patents are based on the technological innovation results exchanged for R&D investment, and the patentee discloses the relevant technological innovations to the world in the form of patents so that all entities in the world can enjoy the relevant technological innovations. Therefore, the patent system itself implies that the entity using the relevant patented technology needs to pay a reasonable fee for this purpose. Only when laws, justice and policies support reasonable fees for patents and obtain reasonable compensation, technological innovators have the resources and enough motivation to further invest in research and development to provide more creative new results for the development of the industry.
Based on years of continuous investment in research and development, as well as a wide range of high-quality patent layout, ZTE's patent value has been widely recognized worldwide, and it has licensed its own patents to many of the world's top companies and obtained corresponding licensing benefits. According to a third-party assessment, ZTE's patents are worth more than 45 billion yuan.
The patent system enables the technological innovation of different entities in the industrial chain to be shared on a global scale, and also enables all participants in the industrial chain to enjoy the convenience and results brought by technological innovation. At the same time, the patent fee enables the patentee to obtain a reasonable and fair license fee, which will help them invest the relevant revenues in the research and development of new technologies, and also give them the motivation to continue to disclose and share their innovative technologies to the industry.
Tong Xin said that as a member of the industry, ZTE has always insisted on sharing its own R&D and innovation results with industrial chain partners, and only collects reasonable returns on innovation, and works with industrial chain partners to resolutely oppose the abuse of the patent system. Patent licensing, patent fees, innovators to obtain reasonable returns and feed back a new round of innovation, these legal and commercial concepts, but also need the understanding of the entire industrial chain, respect and practice in order to truly land, and promote the entire industrial chain to focus on R & D innovation, to achieve industrial upgrading this correct long-term development strategy.
Written by: Cui Liangliang
EDIT: Bright
Guidance: New text