Strategy to share breakthroughs needed

Attorney Barry Taylor noted the importance of intellectual property. [Photos provided to China Daily]

Sara Medina, board member of an international consulting group, spoke about the importance of industry clustering. [Photos provided to China Daily]

Over 20 years of development, Haidian Science Park authorities have built up the Haidian Forum, a platform which combines exhibition and forums, facilitates technology transfer and helps meet companies' demands. It is in cooperation with the Zhongguancun Forum for six straight years.

The event has attracted worldrenowned experts from enterprises, research institutes, and trade associations to exchange views on technology, education and finance.

Globalization has become an important trend in technology development, said Jin Xiaoming, director at the international cooperation department of the Ministry of Science and Technology, in a keynote address to the seminar.

"With increased international, cross-region exchange in technology, it is more common to see the flow of technological resources and researchers globally," Jin said, noting that the worldwide R&D dimension is going wider and deeper.

The nation is already investing heavily in funding international technological cooperation, he said, with 1.15 billion yuan ($183.8 million) spent last year, up from 27 million yuan just two years before. In the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2005-2010), more than 1,000 programs received government funding.

Barry Taylor, a senior partner at the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, told the forum that the successful approach of Silicon Valley in the United States would also work for Zhongguancun, the flourishing high-tech hub in the west of Beijing.

With 35 years of experience as a corporate and securities attorney, Taylor stressed the importance of intellectual property rights in technology transfers.

He said intellectual property rights are held by research institutes, companies and universities, and a businessman needs to know the details of those rights.

He added that joint ventures need to be clear about who controls and protects a company's intellectual property.

Jin said a good internationalized technology strategy helps integrate global resources and improves innovation capability.

In China, it is urgent to build an internationalized talent pool to break the bottleneck in the country's development, he added.

He said the national technology development strategy should include a special fund for technology globalization and improved management under a special technology development commission.

Sara Medina, board member of the international consulting group SPI, said industrial clustering brings operations closer to both consumers and competitors, making technology transfer more convenient and efficient.

In addition to Silicon Valley, successful industrial clusters can also be found in Beijing, London and Paris, she noted.

She said international cooperation is key to the competitiveness of such clusters, but cultural differences remain a challenge.

Chen Dongmin, head of the industrial technology school at Peking University, said academia also faces challenges in technology transfer, noting his university applies for more than 300 patents every year, but fewer than 30 are transferred to other parties.

Although each patent transfer can bring 1 million yuan to the university, and 20 million yuan is earned each year, that revenue is less than 1 percent of investment.

Gaining greater benefits from such vast research is the foremost issue that Chinese universities need to resolve, he said.

He added that protection of intellectual property is crucial to advanced international technologies.

"To incorporate more advanced technologies, we must build a culture that truly respects intellectual property rights," he said.

Matt Loeb, now in his 18th year as an executive at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, said innovation is like a two-way road with multiple layers.

"We keep asking governments, researchers, schools and companies to innovate, but the key is every single person’s innovation or fresh idea every day," he said.

He encouraged more people to communicate or publish their discoveries and inventions.

"Innovation can propel the economy and improve people's lives," he said.

xuxiao@chinadaily.com.cn