Shen Si had a very pleasant past two days, having fun in the crystal park, playing roller coasters, go-karts, and Ferris wheels, making up for all the regrets of his childhood. Then there is a vacation in the water village, although the water village in Brunei at this time has not been planned by the government, everything seems primitive and backward and messy, but stepping on the sea water and blowing the wind still makes people feel relaxed.

When he was about to return to China, Shen Si suddenly received a phone call, and after saying a few words, he handed it directly to Song Weiyang: "Boss, Mr. Ali Cai's phone call is about the second round of financing." ”

"Hey, hello Lao Cai!" Song Weiyang took the phone and said.

"Hello Boss Song," Tsai Chongxin said straight to the point, "Mr. Ma has persuaded SoftBank Son Masayoshi that the other party is willing to invest $30 million and ask for a 30% stake." ”

Song Weiyang smiled: "Son Zhengyi didn't wake up, right?"

Tsai explained: "Alibaba's current situation is not very good, foreign business has shrunk across the board, even Shenghai headquarters in China has been withdrawn, and Wall Street's valuation of Alibaba is declining every month. Son is obviously very optimistic about Ali, and bullied us into being at the bottom and unable to get financing from other investors, so he opened his mouth. ”

"The surname Sun is still a piece of shit!" Song Weiyang said.

Kingston is such a powerful company, and Son sold all 80% of Kingston's shares this year in order to raise funds. This deal can be said to be a loss, because Son was originally acquired for $1.45 billion, but now the selling price is only $450 million, and the book has directly lost $1 billion, not to mention that Kingston has become more valuable in recent years.

There is only one explanation, Son is crazy poor, so poor that the capital chain is about to break, and he can only rely on cheap sales of industries to get back cash.

But in this desperate shortage of money, Son is willing to invest $30 million in Alibaba, which shows how bold and far-sighted this person is.

Song Weiyang asked, "What do other shareholders say?"

Tsai Chongxin said with a smile: "The other shareholders are all against it, and given Ali's financial difficulties, they agreed to Son's capital injection." But they only agreed to inject $20 million into Son, and they also brought in a new investment institution, several companies to jointly inject $5 million. I called this time just to ask Boss Song if he is willing to inject additional funds?"

Song Weiyang said: "Of course, I can invest another $8 million. ”

"Okay, I'll immediately inform the other shareholders of the situation, and then we can discuss a reasonable financing plan. Cai Chongxin said two more words and hung up the phone.

Three weeks after returning to China, it was almost New Year's Day, and Alibaba's second round of financing was finally finalized.

Son invested $20 million, Song Weiyang invested $8 million, and the other six major institutions jointly invested $5 million, and Alibaba's shares became: Ma Xiaoyun's team (42.8%), Taurus Capital (14.8%), SoftBank (10.9%), Song Weiyang (9.1%), and the total of the six major investment institutions (22.4%).

Song Weiyang is still the largest individual shareholder, Taurus Capital is the largest corporate shareholder, and Son's shareholding is far lower than that of another time and space.

However, this doesn't mean anything, if you want to keep your shareholding, you have to continue to throw money, otherwise after Ali's third, fourth, and fifth rounds of financing, the original shares will be diluted badly.

……

After Song Weiyang returned to China, he continued to receive interview invitations from the media, because the news that Shenzhou Technology sued the United States and sued many domestic companies for infringement has spread.

This kind of news was particularly new in 2000, because more than 99% of companies didn't even know how to cross the border, let alone go to the United States to file a lawsuit.

Major newspapers have called this lawsuit "the first case of transnational commercial litigation", and even alarmed the top official media, and the "People's X Daily" has published a commentator's article: "As the process of WTO accession negotiations continues to accelerate, China's accession to the WTO is already inevitable...... After China's accession to the WTO, more and more enterprises will go international, and commercial disputes will inevitably arise, so it is necessary to understand the laws of other countries and protect their legitimate rights and interests through legal means. The case of Shenzhou Technology Co., Ltd. suing the United States for patent infringement can be said to have set a good example for domestic enterprises......"

"Chinese Entrepreneur" issued an article saying: "Chinese enterprises should pay attention to patent protection, at the beginning of the reform and opening up, many patents in China were maliciously snatched by overseas companies. At that time, there was also a kind of special organization, they went around in China to collect invention patents, and then took them abroad to apply for registration, which brought huge losses to China's scientific research institutions and companies...... Now we are paying more and more attention to patents, which is a good development. The case of Shenzhou Technology v. Bienwei is a microcosm of the formalization and internationalization of Chinese enterprises. ”

Anyway, this matter made a lot of noise, and Shenzhou Technology became famous because of it.

Many ordinary people don't use computers, they may not even use PHS, and they don't know what a USB flash drive is. As soon as the news came out, everyone felt that Shenzhou Technology was particularly awesome, and the USB flash drive must be a very high-tech invention, so powerful that American companies would infringe on it. From this point of view, Shenzhou Technology is also a strong company, because other people's lawsuits have been fought in the United States.

The sense of national pride was all of a sudden, and I had only heard that Chinese companies had spent huge sums of money to introduce foreign technology, and there was actually a day when foreign companies came to China to steal patents!

Let's put it this way, a small patent infringement lawsuit, I don't know when the court will be held, and the brand awareness of Shenzhou Technology in China will skyrocket. The sales of USB flash drives exported to China have plummeted, almost to the point that no one buys them, because everyone has a better choice, so why buy a "notorious" product?

Due to the long preparation of the patent lawsuit of DCT, the complaint was filed with the "U.S. Federal Court of Appeals" (which specializes in patent and international trade cases) as quickly as possible, and the lawyer filed a notice of complaint with the company.

As the defendant, Bienwei must respond within 20 days, otherwise it will be tantamount to waiving the right to excuse.

Bienwei originally ignored it, but suddenly learned that Kingston had obtained the patent authorization of the USB flash drive, and the Chinese agent also reported that the Bienwei USB flash drive was unsalable. The former means that the lawsuit is likely to be lost, and the latter means that the company may lose the Chinese market.

As a result, Bienwei hurriedly contacted the U.S. lawyer of Shenzhou Technology, requesting that Shenzhou Technology withdraw the lawsuit, hoping to settle out of court.

U.S. companies are very fond of out-of-court settlements because commercial lawsuits are protracted, the trial process is long and expensive, and it is possible to fight a lawsuit for ten years, with law firms being the biggest winners.

The two parties quickly negotiated and reached a settlement clause: Bienwei compensated Shenzhou Technology with a one-time compensation of 1 million US dollars, paid the U disk patent fee to Shenzhou Technology at a rate of 0.3% in the future, and joined the U disk patent alliance initiated by Shenzhou Technology.

The reason why the talks went so smoothly was mainly because Shenzhou Technology was easy to talk and did not have the idea of making Bienwei bleed - the compensation of 1 million US dollars is only a small amount, and the 0.3% patent royalty is far lower than the market price of 0.5%, which is completely acceptable to Bienwei. Otherwise, Bienwei will definitely choose to fight a lawsuit or engage in protracted out-of-court negotiations.

And Shenzhou Technology is not a bad person, it has its own considerations.

After reaching a settlement with Bienwei, Shenzhou Technology immediately took this settlement agreement, as well as the patent licensing contracts signed with Bienwei and Kingston, and sent a lawyer's letter to all infringing manufacturers of the branded brands around the world.

In the past, there was no response to the lawyer's letter, but now there are the top two U disk manufacturers in the United States to prepare the book, and the patent royalty is still very low, and more than a dozen manufacturers are willing to sit down and negotiate in an instant.

As of March 2001, Shenzhou Technology has granted 18 overseas manufacturers the right to use USB flash drive patents, and can earn a lot of money just by collecting patent fees every year.

At the same time, Shenzhou Technology hyped up the victory, and the major media also cheered and celebrated, reporting one after another: the United States did not dare to respond to the lawsuit, and took the initiative to seek out-of-court settlement, and Chinese companies won a big victory!

The next thing is cool, there is no need for Shenzhou Technology to say anything, those domestic USB flash drive manufacturers who pretend to be dead have taken the initiative to pay patent fees. Anyway, the price is not very expensive, a 500 yuan USB flash drive, 1.5 yuan for Shenzhou Technology, there is no need to make a fuss all over the country, and I have soiled my own brand.

Of course, it's the big brands that do this, and the small manufacturers don't care so much about you. They can make a fortune, and they don't know which year they will go bankrupt, and they are not afraid of being sued by Shenzhou Technology.

What's more, because of the sharp rise in the popularity of Shenzhou's USB flash drive, it directly imitates Shenzhou's brand, and it can't be caught like a mouse, so it can only rely on the public security organs to crack down on counterfeiting and shoddy.

Shenzhou Technology is completely popular, and even the sales of computers are increasing.

PHS, repeater, USB flash drive, computer - these are the four pillar products of China Technology, and each product is full of money. Some industry insiders estimate that the total assets of Shenzhou Technology are likely to exceed 10 billion yuan, and some financial institutions have valued Shenzhou Technology at 20 billion yuan.

Unfortunately, these are all speculations, because Shenzhou Technology is not a listed company, and a large amount of information will not be released to the public at all.

The financial institutions in Hong Kong City will come to the door several times a year, hoping to help Shenzhou Technology operate and go public, but Song Weiyang has never had the intention of going public. Because the company is not short of money at all, PHS is like a money printing machine, and the cash flow can no longer be described as healthy, and it is about to gain weight!

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