After Zhou Xin arrived at Berkeley, it was equivalent to transferring from Yan University's undergraduate to Berkeley to continue his undergraduate studies.

It's just that I was a sophomore before, and now I'm a senior.

What he needs to do is not to take classes, but to take exams.

Those who have taken at Yan University before can be directly converted into credits, and for the basic courses that have not been taken, they need to be made up.

In addition to the exam, he needs to revise the email he sent to Hu Zhengming according to the format of the paper, and after the revision, Hu Zhengming will guide him to post it in a journal in the field of integrated circuits.

In fact, the time arranged for him by Hu Zhengming was very full.

Although it is only a basic course at the undergraduate level, it is definitely not easy.

Changing an email into a paper and formatting it is no less difficult for people who have not been exposed to professional academic training.

Because you write an email, you can assume that the other party knows something, but you need to have a canonical citation in the paper.

It's just that these are just trivial to Zhou Xin.

"Lawyer Stephen, I'm sorry for you, this matter needs to be done as soon as possible."

"If it's as soon as possible, you can opt for a $700 rush on your side.

At this level, the time is generally about a year. ”

"That means it will take a year at the earliest?"

"Yes, it will take a year at the earliest. Because there are many steps in the patent prosecution at Ameriken.

From application search to inspection. ”

"Is there a faster way to do that?" Zhou Xin could not accept such a long period of time to apply for a patent.

A year is too long.

"If you're willing to add an additional $3,000, we can compress that time to six months at the earliest."

Zhou Xin has a new understanding of the high cost of lawyers' fees.

That's about $5,000 if you add these expedited fees.

Basically used up the RMB he earned from New Oriental. In '98, the exchange rate between the US dollar and the RMB was around 8.2.

From the hands of some people who toss foreign exchange, this price will be more expensive.

100,000 RMB, less than 10,000 RMB.

"Can this be written into the contract?"

"Sorry, no, this can't be reflected in the contract."

In other words, it is only the lawyer's words to be able to apply for a patent in the Ameriken area in half a year.

There is no credibility to speak of.

For Chinese who have just arrived at Americacan, it is necessary to follow the zero trust mechanism.

This is the first lesson Zhou Xin learned after coming to Ameriken.

No matter who the other party is or how friendly they are, they must adopt a zero-trust mechanism and do not believe any words they say.

This is especially true for immigrants who are also of Chinese descent.

The fellow pits the fellow, with tears in his eyes.

"Then follow the expedited stop of seven hundred dollars.

Notify me as soon as there is any news trouble. ”

This is a law firm in the greater San Francisco area that focuses on patent prosecution, and some of Zhouxin's patents have been filed through this law firm.

In other words, the law firm has been around for at least twenty years.

Even so, Zhou Xin couldn't believe what the other party said about the $3,000 expedited service.

Because there are no guarantees in black and white.

The patent that Zhou Xin wants to apply for is a patent in the field of DSP, which is called microprocessor and digital signal processor in Chinese. Texas Instruments is growing rapidly in this field.

Although they have not caught up with the wave of smartphones, in the 2G era, they can be said to be the first choice of countless mobile phone manufacturers.

Texas Instruments is one of Nokia's largest partners in the processor space.

And Texas Instruments 98 years in the field of DSP revenue of more than 250 million US dollars.

Semiconductor companies from Neon and Korea have to pay high patent fees to Texas Instruments every year.

The patent in the field of DSP that Zhou Xin wants to apply for can help Neon and Koryo semiconductor companies bypass some of Texas Instruments' patents.

At least $50 million in patent revenue can be lost to Texas Instruments in a year.

It's just a one-year patent application time, which is a bit unbearable for Zhou Xin.

It's not that he didn't want to cooperate with Hu Zhengming, but considering that Hu Zhengming is currently starting a business and is also short of funds, it is difficult to see such a considerable income not to be impressed.

To avoid letting the other party fall into the torture of human nature, it is better not to give the other party a chance to choose.

After leaving Omni Law Firm, he let out a long sigh.

There is always a chasm between ideas and reality.

When I applied for a patent before, I didn't think about making money at all, I just thought that this thing might be valuable.

After finding a law firm to represent me, I just put it there, and wait for a long time for the receipt given by the lawyer.

Realizing that the real world is not working like coming to this era, a 22-year time jump has been achieved in the blink of an eye.

The operation of things in the real world needs to be strictly followed by rules.

Even if it is possible to change the rules sometimes, changing the rules itself is a type of rule.

Realizing this, Zhou Xin chose to integrate into San Francisco in this era.

You should know that Berkeley is also surrounded by a top university, Stanford, and Silicon Valley, 21 kilometers away, which is part of the Bay Area.

The dream of future generations of problem-solvers is to run Ameriken, and then find a job in a large factory in the Bay Area to achieve work-life balance.

At this time, Silicon Valley already had a large number of companies that have influenced the world for decades, such as Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Amazon, Apple and Google.

"What do you think is the most important thing in the process of developing a product?"

"The first thing to think about is my target audience: Professor? Student? Someone with a technical background? Someone who doesn't have this background?

These have a direct impact on the design of the visual interface.

The audience determines how much it costs to learn about a product.

For example, a program that handles desktop management might include a built-in command line that is always open if it's aimed at users who are used to the command line, but such a feature may not be as useful for casual users who might be completely confused by the command line.

The cost of learning is roughly how much effort I think my users are willing to put into using the software I design.

ViM is a text editor with a very high initial learning curve, but that's acceptable considering that most serious programmers think learning how to use such a good text editor is a good investment. On the other hand, if ViM is aimed at the general user, as is Microsoft's Office, then the average user will not be interested in learning how to use the software.

So the most important thing is to be clear about your target users. ”

Both the VIM and the Office suite have a long history, and both were nothing new until 1998.

"Congratulations on getting an internship at Microsoft, even if you are a Berkeley student, there are only a few who can get an internship at Microsoft."

Before the patent application was filed, Zhou Xin chose to go to Silicon Valley for an internship, and he basically chose to invest in the sea.

Microsoft was the first company to give him an internship offer.

Microsoft is headquartered in Seattle and has a branch in Silicon Valley.

It's mostly a group of developers, and a whole line of product teams.

Susie Dink, head of Microsoft's product team in Silicon Valley,