Three Years of Cultivation Yield Fruit: Foshan Patent Transformation Contest Drives Over 10 Billion Yuan in Capital Increase and Expansion

Source:IPRdaily

On the morning of March 13, the Award Ceremony of the 3rd Foshan High-Value Patent Achievement Transfer and Transformation Contest (hereinafter referred to as the "Patent Transformation Contest") was successfully held. Gold, silver and bronze awards, as well as honors for Best Cooperative Unit, Best Organizer and Demonstration Landing Project, were presented on site. A batch of projects was signed collectively, and business licenses were issued to newly landed enterprises. This marks another fruitful achievement for Foshan in deepening the application of intellectual property rights and promoting the development of new quality productive forces.

Under the theme of Gathering New Kinetic Energy, Building a New Foshan, this year’s contest is hosted by the People’s Government of Foshan and the Intellectual Property Development and Research Center of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), and co-organized by the Foshan Municipal Administration for Market Regulation (Intellectual Property Office) and the Foshan Municipal Bureau of Talent Work. Adhering to the positioning of Based in the Greater Bay Area, Serving the Whole Country, Industry-Oriented and Precise Transformation, the contest closely follows Foshan’s "6+N" industrial layout, focusing on strategic pillar and emerging industries such as intelligent manufacturing, new materials and biomedicine. It aims to bridge the "last mile" of patent transformation and accelerate the movement of innovative achievements from the "contest field" to the "market".

Relevant leaders from the Intellectual Property Development and Research Center of CNIPA and principal leaders of the Foshan Municipal Administration for Market Regulation (Intellectual Property Office) attended the ceremony and delivered speeches. More than 100 representatives from government departments, universities and research institutes, participating teams, enterprises, industrial parks, investment and financing institutions, and intellectual property service institutions attended the event.

Three Years of Momentum: Transformation Mechanism Takes Shape, Brand Effect Grows

Three years of hard work have brought fruitful results. Having run for three years, the Patent Transformation Contest has become an important window for observing patent transformation and application in Foshan and even the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The contest has attracted 1,878 projects from across the country and overseas in total. It has driven 32 projects to land in Foshan in the form of technology enterprise incubation, facilitated 49 patent assignment and licensing deals, reached 57 patent cooperation intentions and 60 patent investment and financing intentions. More than 270 Foshan enterprises have participated in patent transformation and application, driving a total of about 12.5 billion yuan in capital increase, financing and expansion.

It has effectively promoted high-value patent achievements to move from the contest field to the market and transform into real productive forces. With concrete actions, it supports Foshan in building a modern industrial system and achieving the development goal of "building a new Foshan".

Relevant leaders from the Intellectual Property Development and Research Center of CNIPA stated in their speech that the center has always regarded Foshan as an important partner in empowering manufacturing development with intellectual property rights. By co-hosting the Patent Transformation Contest for three consecutive years, it has explored new paths for patent transformation through contest organization, turned cooperation consensus into practical achievements, and made intellectual property an important support for the high-quality development of Foshan’s manufacturing industry.

The three-year practice of the contest demonstrates a vivid picture of resonance between a strong manufacturing city and the cause of intellectual property rights. In the future, the center will continue to deepen all-round cooperation with Foshan, rely on the Foshan Research Base, focus on the main line of patent industrialization, help Foshan further improve the ecology of intellectual property transformation and application, and enable more high-value patents to blossom in Foshan.

Principal leaders of the Foshan Municipal Administration for Market Regulation (Intellectual Property Office) noted that Foshan is a famous national historical and cultural city with profound heritage and a key node city in the Greater Bay Area with a solid industrial foundation. Currently, it is anchoring the goal of "building a new Foshan", vigorously promoting the intelligent, green and integrated transformation of manufacturing industry, and boosting the coordinated development of manufacturing and service industries.

Over the past three years, the contest has closely aligned with Foshan’s industrial development direction, with its track setup optimized from "6+2" to "6+N" this year, matching the local industrial planning more precisely. The radiation influence of the contest keeps growing, attracting innovative teams from Hong Kong universities to conduct two-way docking in Foshan, yielding fruitful results in project landing and transformation. Next, Foshan will further realize the precise connection of government, industry, finance and service resources, and provide all-round support for project landing and transformation.

Precise Docking: High-Quality Projects Take Root in Foshan with Tangible Results

After fierce competition, the contest finally selected 3 gold award winners, 6 silver award winners and 10 bronze award winners. Three projects, namely Long-Life Etching 2.0: Upgrade Plan for Domestic Semiconductor Precision Components, New-Generation Strategic Emerging High-End Membrane Material Project and Nano Silicon-Zinc-Selenium Technology Empowering Agricultural Health, won the gold awards.

Six projects including R&D and Industrial Application of Rare Earth Recycled Deformed Aluminum Alloy Materials and High-Throughput SPR Biological Molecule Rapid Detector took silver medals. Ten projects such as Key Technology for Preparation of High-End Capacitor Anode Foil and Its Industrialization won bronze medals. Trophies and certificates of honor were issued to the winning projects at the ceremony.

Meanwhile, 5 units including Foshan Rural Commercial Bank Co., Ltd. were selected as Best Cooperative Units; 5 organizations including the Market Regulation Bureaus of Chancheng District and Nanhai District, Foshan Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, Foshan University and JiHua Laboratory won the Best Organizer Awards; and 10 projects including Research and Development and Industrial Application of Mixed Odor Online Perception and Analysis Instrument were awarded Demonstration Landing Projects.

In the signing session, a number of high-quality projects reached cooperation agreements, accumulating momentum for the high-quality economic and social development of Foshan. Four participating project units from Nanchang University, South China University of Technology and other institutions signed patent assignment and licensing agreements with Guangdong Xingfa Aluminum, Guangdong Yixin Micro Semiconductor and other companies respectively.

Four participating project units including Guangdong Zhongtu Technology and Guangdong Puwei Technology signed contracts with investment and financing institutions. Four participating project units including Foshan Rongshun New Materials and Foshan Dongqiaolushan Intelligent Technology signed landing cooperation agreements with industrial parks. In addition, the executive committee issued business licenses to representatives of 8 projects that had established new companies in Foshan on site.

The Nano Silicon-Zinc-Selenium Technology Empowering Agricultural Health project from Foshan Tieren Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. won the gold award. The technology of this project has been promoted in 8 million mu of cultivated land nationwide, creating remarkable ecological and economic benefits. Empowered by the contest, the company has defined the integrated model of "technology + products + services" to deeply cultivate the whole agricultural industry chain, and obtained a 60 million yuan credit line through patent pledge.

The silver-award-winning project Next-Generation Zero-Trust Network Endogenous Security Protection Technology has set up a local entity to deeply explore the Foshan market, and carried out in-depth cooperation with Foshan Municipal Cryptographic Administration, Foshan Institute of Industrial Technology, vocational colleges and other parties, quickly integrating into the local network security industrial ecosystem.

Transfer, Transformation and Application of a High-Performance Non-Binary 12bit SARADC Patent Technology, jointly developed by Guangzhou Hongbo Microelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. and Hunan University, won the bronze award. With the assistance of the contest’s technology manager team, the team registered and established Foshan Dongqiaolushan Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. in Chancheng District in August 2024, and has signed trial contracts and sales orders.

In addition, the nano-coating technology of Guangdong University of Technology has incubated a local company through the contest, establishing cooperation with leading enterprises such as Midea and Jianmei Aluminum. The Rare Earth Recycled Aluminum Alloy project cooperated by Nanchang University and Guangdong Xingfa Aluminum focused on cost and large-scale issues in the contest review process, prompting the team to optimize the plan and accelerate the patent implementation process.

Greater Bay Area Synergy: Key Step Taken in "Hong Kong and Macao R&D + Foshan Transformation"

The Patent Transformation Contest is not only an "accelerator" for patent achievement transformation, but also a "binder" for innovation collaboration in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Over the past three years, based on Foshan’s industrial foundation advantage as a manufacturing center in the Greater Bay Area, the contest has taken the initiative to connect high-level scientific research resources in Hong Kong and Macao, promoting the rooting of original innovative achievements from Hong Kong and Macao in Foshan’s industrial soil.

By establishing a normalized cooperation mechanism with Hong Kong, Foshan has carried out in-depth collaboration with the Hong Kong Productivity Council on technological achievement transformation, overseas intellectual property layout and other topics, exploring a full-chain collaborative path covering achievement transformation, financial services and industrial docking.

With the deepening of cooperation, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Lingnan University have successively joined the Foshan Intellectual Property Transfer and Transformation Alliance. Eleven scientific research teams from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Lingnan University and other institutions have brought cutting-edge technologies to Foshan’s industrial frontlines, carrying out in-depth cooperation with local leading enterprises such as JiHua Laboratory and Monalisa Group, and reaching a number of preliminary cooperation intentions. The Patent Transformation Contest has successfully opened up the key channel of "Hong Kong and Macao R&D + Foshan Manufacturing".

Taking the Patent Transformation Contest as a link, Foshan is accelerating the construction of a full-chain service system integrating "display, evaluation, docking, financing and landing", promoting the efficient matching of innovative resources with Foshan’s industrial needs. Meanwhile, Foshan is actively integrating into the global innovation network, strengthening exchanges and cooperation with innovative resources from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Hong Kong and Macao regions, fully supporting the "Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou" innovation cluster to maintain its top position among the world’s top 100 innovation clusters, and enabling intellectual property and scientific and technological achievements to flow smoothly and take root in the Greater Bay Area.

Cultivating Fertile Ground: Building a Patent Transformation Ecosystem to Empower Manufacturing-Led Development

The successful holding of the Patent Transformation Contest is inseparable from Foshan’s increasingly improved patent transformation ecosystem. In recent years, Foshan has focused on breaking through three key links: carriers, finance and talents, providing strong support for the landing and transformation of high-value patents.

In terms of carrier construction, Foshan has built "Foshan Patent Transformation and Application Demonstration Bases" such as Yundonghai Medical and Health Industrial Park, Guangdong Gaoming Industrial Innovation Research Institute, and Guangdong (Foshan) Software Industrial Park, providing full-chain services for innovative achievements from incubation to industrialization.

In terms of financial support, the city has completed more than 1,000 intellectual property pledge financing transactions in the past three years, with a pledge amount of nearly 100 billion yuan, ranking among the top three in Guangdong Province. In terms of talent support, Foshan has established the Practice Base of the China Intellectual Property Training Center (Guangdong Foshan) and the Foshan Base of the Intellectual Property Development and Research Center of CNIPA, launched 9 sessions of Chief Intellectual Property Officer training, and 285 senior executives of Foshan enterprises have become the backbone of enterprise intellectual property work through systematic training.

The solid ecological foundation injects strong innovative momentum into this city with the fourth largest industrial output in China. At present, Foshan has two trillion-yuan industrial clusters (equipment manufacturing, pan-home furnishing) and 10 hundred-billion-yuan industrial clusters, with more than 1.72 million market entities and over 10,000 industrial enterprises above designated size.

Relevant principals of Foshan’s market regulation authorities stated that Foshan is stepping up the formulation of the 15th Five-Year Plan for intellectual property rights, and simultaneously developing a three-year implementation plan for intellectual property rights to empower high-quality development. It aims to strengthen the cultivation of high-value patents, promote overseas patent layout, deepen patent transformation and application, innovate intellectual property finance, and strengthen overseas IPR protection assistance, fully optimizing the full-chain service ecosystem of intellectual property rights. The implementation of a series of policies and measures is translating into tangible results of innovative development.

With three years of accumulation, the Patent Transformation Contest has become an important platform for Foshan to promote patent achievement transformation. More and more high-value patent achievements are taking root and blossoming in Foshan, providing strong support for "building a new Foshan", and also contributing a "Foshan model" for national manufacturing cities to explore intellectual property transformation and application.

Source:IPRdaily