At the end of August 1986, representatives of more than 60 TV and display industry giants from around the world gathered in Hong Kong for what appeared to be the "World Plasma Technology Alliance Meeting", but in reality, it was an expensive ticket to the plasma industry.

"How much does it cost to circumvent these patents?"

"It's not clear, the minimum is tens of millions of dollars, and there is no cap. This refers to the premise that new start-up electronics companies will not continue to increase patent barriers. If Lin Qi continues to register more patents, our costs may increase indefinitely. The time it takes is completely uncertain, ranging from two or three years to ...... Wait until the patent of the new start-up electronics company expires!"

"Can't wait that long!"

After the emergence of plasma products, these companies have also tried to develop independently. Reverse engineering and imitation are not difficult for these TV industry giants with heads and faces. The most difficult task is to analyze every plasma-related technology of the new start-up electronic registration, and then find out the loopholes from it.

Because these technologies are so numerous, it takes a lot of manpower and material resources just to sort out these patents. It requires both the most professional technical personnel and a large number of patent attorneys.

Well, especially those lawyers, it may be more expensive than R&D personnel! Not to mention, hiring a large number of lawyers, this cost, directly makes many companies teary-eyed.

……

Within the major companies, they unanimously decided to go to Hong Kong to pay "protection fees" to the new venture electronics company. Although this protection fee may be sky-high, the loss of paying this sky-high protection fee is still relatively low, and I am afraid that my strength is not enough, and I am not even qualified to pay the protection fee!

You know, not everyone is eligible to pay protection money. The new venture electronics only gives 5 places, who can pay a higher price, can get the place, Tong Su is not bullied!

It is precisely because this place is very scarce that some powerful giants are bound to win!

The new venture electronics company is probably the world's most important company to apply for technology patents, any field is favored by the new venture electronics, less than hundreds of patents, more than tens of thousands of patents registered.

Every year, the number of patents held by new venture electronics companies should increase by at least 40,000 or 50,000 patents, and from the perspective of R&D and innovation, it is impossible for new venture electronics companies to make tens of thousands of inventions in a year. The vast majority of patents are nothing more than to protect the same technology from different angles and prevent competitors from exploiting loopholes to break patent barriers. Sometimes, a real innovation is split into hundreds of patents filed separately. Many patents are not the best solution, and new start-up electronics companies have abandoned them, but they still apply for relevant patents to prevent other companies from choosing these paths to break down patent barriers.

Of course, some products are favored by the industry due to the market, even if more patents are registered, it is inevitable that some giants will find ways to bypass them.

The main function of patent barriers is not to completely prevent opponents from entering the market, which cannot be done. Just to increase the cost of competitors, to enter the market!

Even in the 21st century, patent protection cannot be achieved without blind spots. Only 50% of the protected market can be covered. The remaining 50% of the grey market is simply unable to defend its rights due to cost reasons or legal loopholes.

In addition, large companies really want to make oil and water, and they can even simply support copycat manufacturers, and after gradually muddying the water, they will begin to fish in troubled waters. For example, it does not produce plasma products directly, but provides parts and technical support to copycat manufacturers through intermediaries. Therefore, it is more difficult to sue those large companies. As for the knock-off of those copycat manufacturers, it is not very significant, because the copycat manufacturers themselves do not have the technology and ability to imitate, and there must be some big companies with heads and faces secretly providing support!

In order to avoid major manufacturers from resorting to various "lower limit" routines, Xinchuang Electronics naturally knows that it is better to be blocked. Through external technology licensing, a number of giants have the qualification of legal production. In this way, the benefits are naturally not as much as the monopoly, but the new venture electronics can still become the most profitable one!

After open bidding competition, Panasonic, Sony, Philips, Samsung, RCA five manufacturers won the ticket qualification of plasma display with an absolute advantage.

The quotation of the major manufacturers is the patent advance payment, and the minimum advance payment amount is as high as 100 million US dollars! In the end, the total advance payment of the five major manufacturers is as high as 650 million US dollars!

But after this astronomical amount of money was spent, the representatives of the major manufacturers showed a relieved expression!

Because, although the amount paid is high, if it is built on plasma technology that will replace CRT display technology, then this ticket is definitely worth the price!

You must know that the total output value of the global TV industry has exceeded 30 billion US dollars, and if this market alone is divided by 10 companies, it is enough to cultivate 10 Fortune 500 companies. In addition, because the display industry is growing rapidly, although the scale is only 5 billion US dollars, but with the rapid popularization of personal computers, this market is expected to reach half of the TV market.

The major companies present are all Fortune 500 companies, and although their companies have other businesses, there is no doubt that the TV and monitor business occupies a very large proportion of these groups, and it is not an exaggeration to say that these companies are pillar industries. As long as you guarantee a share of the TV market, it is really easy to make $100 million a year. It is precisely because of this that these giants will pay money without blinking an eye and buy tickets to the plasma display market!

Subsequently, manufacturers who have obtained plasma-based patents form a plasma display technology alliance and automatically obtain the founding membership of the alliance. The members of the alliance include New Venture Electronics and New Apple Technology, as well as the five major manufacturers that subsequently entered the market through the purchase of patent qualifications.

The market of plasma display technology has gradually formed a pattern in which seven major manufacturers carve up most of the market.

Of course, standing at the top of the pyramid is naturally the new venture electronics group company, which not only has its own core technology, but also exploits the other six companies through patent barriers.

The six companies also have only two options for producing plasma TVs or monitors – one is to produce it in-house, but it is required to pay a 2.5% "tax" to the start-up electronics company. The other is to purchase the current plasma panel of the new venture electronics company, only when an assembly and OEM manufacturer, because the new venture electronics has a first-mover advantage and scale advantage, plus there is no need to pay 2.5% of the patent fee, this scheme may be cheaper.

However, Japanese and Korean manufacturers in this era are very confident, believing that their own management is very advanced and can improve efficiency and cost through advanced management systems. Therefore, after Japanese and Korean manufacturers were authorized, they soon returned to China and spent hundreds of millions of dollars non-stop to establish their own plasma panel factories.

As for the manufacturers in Europe and the United States, they are more pragmatic, and Philips and RCA have adopted the early purchase of plasma panels from new start-up electronics companies to assemble and produce their own products. After that, depending on the market situation of the product, it is decided whether to start its own plasma panel production line.

After receiving $650 million in advance payments from major manufacturers, the new start-up electronics company did not fully invest in the plasma display industry. And only 450 million US dollars were invested by users to expand the production scale of plasma panels and improve technology. In addition, 200 million US dollars will be invested in the liquid crystal display industry.