Chen Zhiqiang is the chairman of Nuctech Technology Co., Ltd., and the chief researcher of the Department of Engineering and Physics of Tsinghua University/the director of the Institute of Nuclear Technology and Application of Tsinghua University. Now 53 years old, he still has lingering palpitations when he recalls the decision he made 13 years ago.
The stakes are high: a case of intellectual property protection
This case file records the difficult process at that time, and this eight-month patent dispute case was rated as one of the top ten major intellectual property protection cases in the country that year. On one side of the case, Chen Zhiqiang, an expert in the application of nuclear technology at Tsinghua University and chairman of Nuctech, and on the other hand, a scientific research institution under the British Home Affairs, the name of the patent in the case was a cargo security inspection system.
Originally, the traditional CT is called slip ring CT, and its ray source and detector are on a slip ring, surrounding our inspected object, such as our package, or our checked baggage, which rotates 360 degrees to obtain a projection. The whole slip ring is very heavy, when the slip ring rotates at high speed, the centrifugal acceleration of the parts on the slip ring CT has exceeded 30 G, which poses a great challenge to the mechanical stress of the parts on the ring. If a screw is loosened, it will fly out as damaging as a bullet, and it will be extremely destructive. Therefore, how to obtain high-speed projection to reconstruct the image of CT without rotating the slip ring was a problem faced by scientists around the world at that time. And whoever masters this technology first will be able to take the lead in the layout of security products in the future. Chen Zhiqiang's team has achieved this, and the static CT technology they developed uses the physical characteristics of radiation rays to penetrate to realize the inspection of goods and bags, which is a revolutionary innovation for traditional slip ring CT technology. But at that time, Chen Zhiqiang didn't know what kind of painful choice he would face in the future.
Tracing back to the source: Tsinghua Department of Engineering and Physics and his story
In 1956, in order to train enough nuclear technical personnel for the country, the Department of Engineering and Physics came into being, and since then, countless students of the Department of Engineering and Physics have gone to the northwest of the motherland, incognito, where they have dedicated their youth to the successful detonation of China's two bombs. Before Chen Zhiqiang came to Tsinghua University, he did not know much about the history of the Department of Engineering and Physics, and even his initial ambition was to be a doctor and a fashion designer.
After learning and understanding, Chen Zhiqiang gradually became interested in this department, which was different from his expectations at the beginning. At the end of the 70s of the last century, the condensation of the Cold War and the suspicion of the Cold War began to gradually subside, and the second generation of engineers represented by Chen Zhiqiang's mentor, Professor Kang Kejun, began to gradually shift the focus of research from weapons to the civilian field of nuclear technology.
Dilemma: Multiple choice questions with no absolute answer
In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, in the field of nuclear physics research, the scientific research level of European and American countries was ahead of China, and most of China's first generation of nuclear physics researchers also had the experience of studying abroad, and it was the consensus of students in this field to learn more advanced experience and technology in Europe and the United States at that time, however, when Chen Zhiqiang was about to graduate, whether to study abroad became a dilemma. Chen Zhiqiang's mentor, Professor Kang Kejun, undertook the national Eighth Five-Year Plan scientific and technological research project, that is, the fixed large container inspection system, and he led a wave of young teachers and students to participate in the public relations and research and development process of this project. At the end of the public relations of this project, the country is particularly eager to transform this achievement into actual products as soon as possible, and can be really used in the front line of our application. However, there was no good technical means at that time, so we were faced with how to transform the scientific research results of the Eighth Five-Year Plan into engineering prototypes as soon as possible. Whether to go to the United States to continue to explore deeper fields, or stay in China for research and development of major projects, these are two completely different paths, for Chen Zhiqiang, who was in his early 20s at the time, this choice is likely to determine his future destiny. In fact, from a personal point of view, there is no one absolutely correct answer to this multiple-choice question, and each choice has a sufficiently good reason to produce completely different results, and perhaps we should be more concerned with what exactly is the reason for this multiple-choice question.
The 986 project is actually the code name of an important meeting of the State Council, which was convened by the State Council in June 1998 to combat smuggling. Because smuggling at the border was very serious at that time, it was decided at this meeting to carry out non-contact inspection of incoming and outgoing goods, especially container incoming and outgoing goods, by equipping high-tech inspection equipment, so as to truly carry out smuggling activities
Effective blow, so the code name is "H986". But at that time, if you want to curb smuggling, the means are very simple, and you can only rely on customs staff to manually open the container for inspection, which is very inefficient, it is in this context that Chen Zhiqiang joined the landing project of the H986 fixed container security inspection system, and this young man witnessed the changes of the times in Tianjin Donggang.
Dare to be the first: Nirvana rebirth after suffering
In the third year after the successful implementation of the 986 project and began to be used successfully, China joined the WTO, and the whole China began to have a close relationship with the world, and the greater product circulation prompted the Tongfang Nuctech company to continuously update its product technology, and Chen Zhiqiang also took over the mantle of the teacher, leading the company to expand the pace of going to sea, after 10 years, a transnational patent dispute case, so that Chen Zhiqiang faced the second major choice in his life.
The static CT technology mentioned above represented the future of security, and at that time, Nuctech was the first company in the world to propose this technology solution. However, when the technology was already patented in the United States, it was challenged by British companies. In August 2011, Chen Zhiqiang suddenly received a letter of conflict from the U.S. Patent Office, stating that a scientific research team of the British Home Office had the same patent design and implementation ideas as Chen Zhiqiang's team, and the British side believed that their invention point and invention time were earlier than the time when Chen Zhiqiang's team applied for a patent, so there was a patent conflict. As the first batch of high-tech enterprises in China to go to sea, Chen Zhiqiang's Tongfang Nuctech encountered patent conflict cases in the process of going out, which contained inevitability in accident, and at that point in time, Chen Zhiqiang was inadvertently pushed to the forefront and became the first person to eat crabs.
After the efforts of several generations of Tsinghua people, now just took over, if the company's future ends in his own hands, Chen Zhiqiang can not let go, just when Chen Zhiqiang is in a dilemma, new changes suddenly appeared. At the end of 2011, a British patent attorney suddenly sent a lawyer's letter to Chen's team, in which they proposed a so-called settlement. But when they saw the copy of the settlement, they were shocked because it was a settlement agreement that was actually completely unequal. From an economic point of view, if he continues to fight the lawsuit, the cost will exceed the $150,000 in the settlement agreement, and once he loses, there will be no room for maneuver at all, and whether Chen Zhiqiang can afford this consequence is a question. But on the other hand, after finally catching up until now, do you really want to give up? After thinking about it for a long time, Chen Zhiqiang made the second key choice in his life, and fought hard.
When Chen Zhiqiang's team was still struggling with how to prove that their invention was earlier, the discovery of an email made the whole case final. This email is a very unbiased third-party channel, proving that an email was sent between Chen Zhiqiang's team at a certain point in time on a certain day, in which a key innovation point was discussed. In the end, Chen Zhiqiang and Tongfang Nuctech won the patent conflict case in the United States by 37 days ahead of the British side, and retained the ownership of the patent. It was also since then that Chen Zhiqiang led Nuctech to formally establish its own technical barriers in the international market, and Chinese products have a place in the overseas market.
There are countless choices that make up a complex and rich life, and different choices reflect different values. At 21:45 today, please lock in Beijing Satellite TV's "Cheer for You" to see how this nuclear technology successor writes his life answers.