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There are only four domestic companies with hardware products that have a certain market share in the European market: Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo and Asda.

In the past few years, Huawei and ZTE have been involved in many patent lawsuits.

They were all exhausted from the torment.

Lenovo will not be troubled by these things, because Lenovo's main brand in Europe and the United States is ThinkPad, which was originally acquired from IBM and comes with many related patents. Another point is that computers have been around for thirty years, and many early patents in this field have expired.

At the beginning, Asda was under great pressure in terms of patents and suffered a lot of lawsuits.

Later, it cooperated with Google and acquired Motorola.

Related lawsuits have dropped sharply.

But there are still some lawsuits.

Internet companies are actually pretty good. They basically use open source protocols. There is a vast array of technologies in the world, and they can be developed anywhere in the world. The same cannot be said for hardware products such as smartphones. If such lawsuits are not resolved, they will be really annoying and can bore people to death.

It doesn't necessarily mean it's actually infringement.

Many are patent trolls.

For someone like Qualcomm, which has serious patents, it’s actually easier.

Everyone puts it on the table.

Just afraid that some mice are messing around behind my back.

Zhou Buqi said: “Many patent trolls initiate lawsuits not at all to win the case.”

"ah?"

Tang Binchen was slightly startled.

Zhou Buqi said: "I didn't expect it at the beginning. After talking to Zhou Shaoning several times last time, I realized what a real patent troll is. It is really worse than Qualcomm. Some institutions really have many good patents in their hands. There are also some people who deliberately seek trouble. People initiate lawsuits not to win the lawsuit, but to create trouble. "

"This is really amazing!" Tang Binchen already understood what this meant, "Isn't it just like when foreign companies come to the country to start construction and build factories, local snakes organize some people to go there and make trouble, and ask them to give money. If they don't pay, they will go to work every day. Noisy."

"Yes, almost the same, the nature is the same." Zhou Buqi smiled, and then sighed, "A patent lawsuit in the EU will take two to three years. The cost is too high. After two or three years, , not to mention the legal fees will cost millions of dollars, and it will also cause huge trouble to the company’s daily operations.”

"Well, it's just like when a foreign company encounters trouble from local snakes. Either move away, or spend money to eliminate the trouble."

"When many companies encounter this kind of thing, most of them settle privately. It's like encountering extortion, just give them some money. If you really start a lawsuit and go through the formal process, it will cost more than ten times more. "

"That's quite frustrating."

"So Asda needs to buy more patents. On the one hand, it can accumulate strong capital, and on the other hand, it is also a compromise."

Zhou Buqi didn't want to compromise.

But a strong dragon cannot overwhelm a local snake.

It’s okay not to accept it.

They are locals, usually a few lawyers form a partnership, get a few patents, and set up a patent company. Then, start looking for prey in the market, preferably new immigrants.

This kind of outsider, who has just arrived and has not yet established himself, will be very passive and panicked when he suddenly receives a lawsuit.

Either you have to pay for the settlement, or you have to hire an outside law firm to litigate the lawsuit head-on... If this lawsuit really starts, it will be too long. If you hire a team of lawyers, the legal fees may cost millions a year. EUR……

And once the dispute breaks out, the lawsuit may last four to five years.

But if you give in and settle, paying hundreds of thousands of euros, it will be settled.

Not to mention Asda, even technology giants such as Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle are often troubled by patent trolls, and most of the time they spend money to ward off troubles.

Unless the other party asks for hundreds of millions of dollars, there is no other way.

Zhou Buqi said: "There are two main ideas now. In the past few years, Qualcomm has killed many European chip manufacturers, which is a good thing for us. If Asda wants to develop its own chips, it will go smoothly. Not only Astar, but also Huawei has a semiconductor research center in Europe. They are also using this method to develop self-developed chips. However, it is not enough to have people, but also knowledge. property."

"Well, these European chip manufacturers have a lot of intellectual property rights."

Tang Binchen nodded.

I think it's quite interesting.

Boss Zhou and Qualcomm are really in love with each other.

Qualcomm really helped a lot by ruining the European chip industry. With the country’s strength, it would be really difficult to develop mobile phone chips by itself, and even low-end chips would not be able to understand it. However, the chip industry in Europe has a strong foundation. If a chip R\u0026D center is established in Europe, there will be a good chance of hitting the high end in the future!

It is difficult to compete with Qualcomm, but at least it has the capital to compete.

Zhou Buqi said: "If these intellectual property rights fall into the hands of patent trolls, there will be trouble in the future! Cut them off at the source first, and Aisda will spend a lot of money to buy these things first."

"What about the second step?"

"The second step is to find those patent trolls and buy patents from them."

"ah?"

Tang Binchen was slightly startled.

Zhou Buqi said: "Some patents may not be useful, but if you buy them, you can at least avoid future troubles and prevent harassment. However, the more important thing is to establish a cooperative relationship through patent transactions. If you can establish a cooperative relationship with the local If we build good relationships with local cowards and authorize these patent trolls to help Asda fight against infringement, we will have fewer troubles in the future.”

Just like a company building a factory in a local area, it was caused trouble by local snakes.

If there is trouble, pay to settle it.

This treats the symptoms rather than the root cause.

If something else happens in the future, the other party may come out to cause trouble.

The best thing is to sit down and talk with local cowards, and let's work together to do business and develop a relationship as friends. In this way, you can establish a local network of connections, and if you encounter anything in the future, you can ask this local snake to come forward and help.

Tang Binchen frowned slightly, "Is this possible?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Then what can you do? Let's treat a dead horse as a living horse. After all, stock up on more patents and get more patent portfolios, and you will be confident in any aspect. If you don't have anything in your hands, it will be really bad. I don’t even have the courage to challenge, and I have no choice but to pay when people come to blackmail me.”

"Where's Huawei? Where's ZTE?"

"Can it be the same? They have been developing in the European market for more than ten years, and these companies have been established for 20 or 30 years, and they all have a lot of accumulation. Aisda is still too young, with a poor background, and people who are kind-hearted can be bullied. Even if you are weak, you will be bullied.”

"Why do I hear this? Huawei and ZTE are both better than ASDA?"

Tang Binchen burst out laughing.

Zhou Buqi said: "Just because people have accumulated a lot of technology, and they are confident because of their strong technology, it does not mean that they will be recognized by the market."

Tang Binchen said carelessly: "As troublesome as it sounds, it's easier to do the Internet! At least you don't have to worry about these nonsense!"

"It's not just mobile phones. Chaowan Commune was sued for making a blind box. They said it was patent infringement and demanded 12 million euros in compensation for infringement. Damn it, you look like a patent troll at first glance!"

Zhou Buqi has seen too many such things.

Another example is Hollywood.

A new movie from Ziweixing Universal is premiering... Immediately, "script thugs" will come to your door, claiming that the movie plagiarized his ideas and concepts, and demanding compensation. It doesn’t cost much, just two to three hundred thousand dollars.

what to do?

You can only give money.

When a movie is released, the first few days are the most critical. Once a scandal occurs at such a critical moment and the box office is depressed, the loss will be too great. There is no way to take this kind of thing seriously... If you really take it seriously and prove that you didn't plagiarize, it will be over.

When the proof comes out, will the movie box office have already failed? The loss may be hundreds of millions of dollars.

Who dares to take this risk?

It's better to just give him money and admit his defeat.

Spend some money to reconcile privately, spend some money to buy peace, and settle things early and quickly.

Taoism is good, yin and yang are divided into two parts.

Europe and the United States do a good job in patent protection, which is a "yang". The "yin" accompanying it is all kinds of patent trolls that make people miserable.