Rebirth of a Top Student's Handbook

The next day, Zhou Min sent offer letters to the other 20 selected students and then called Cheng Zhao to invite him to the company for an interview.

Cheng Zhao arrived quickly, clearly having been waiting for a long time.

Zhou Min smiled as she looked at Cheng Zhao, who had rushed over, and said, "I invited you here today mainly to discuss patent cooperation with you."

Cheng Zhao was taken aback: "Patent cooperation?"

Seeing Cheng Zhao's puzzled expression, Zhou Min smiled and said, "Yes, the three small inventions you brought yesterday are all very good and have great commercial value."

"I happen to own an intellectual property company that can help people register patents for free, and then split the profits 50/50 with them."

"Later profits?"

When Cheng Zhao came over, he only thought that Zhou Min had called him over to sign a contract. Now, he was completely unprepared for what Zhou Min was saying.

"Yes, have you ever looked into patents before?"

Zhou Min had already realized that Cheng Zhao didn't know much about patents before. But that was understandable; ordinary people rarely take the initiative to learn about this area.

Sure enough, as soon as she finished speaking, Cheng Zhao shook his head.

"To put it simply, a patent is an invention that is protected by laws and regulations. Now that you have an invention, what we need to do is apply for a patent for it and obtain legal protection."

"Then we sell its ownership or usage rights to companies that need it."

"We also have patent lawyers who will sue companies that infringe on your patents and help you recover your losses."

“We will also build our own factory to produce patented products. If we use your patent, we will pay the patent fees.”

"These are all benefits from the patents. With our full agency, we will split these profits 50/50 with you."

"In other words, you just need to hand over one of your inventions to us, and we will handle the subsequent commercial operations for you. All you have to do is collect the money."

Zhou Min explained in great detail, but Cheng Zhao was completely bewildered.

He certainly knew what a patent was.

But can his things be patented? Can they be sold for money?

Thinking this to himself, Cheng Zhao asked the question.

"Of course it can be patented. We haven't seen any similar fully automatic smart cameras on the market yet, but we don't rule out the possibility that someone has already registered this patent."

"If you agree to cooperate, I will ask a patent engineer to search the system for similar patents later."

"If not, we'll start the registration process directly. If so, we'll try to find the differences. If necessary, we might need to modify your original design. Of course, we'll discuss this with you."

"After the patent is registered, we will seek media publicity to promote this patented technology so that it can be seen by those who need it. Subsequently, a patent agent will negotiate with the company about licensing."

“These are all handled by specialists, so you don’t need to worry. All you have to do is hand over the invention to us.”

Because she had high expectations for Cheng Zhao, Zhou Min patiently answered all his questions.

Upon hearing this, Cheng Zhao asked nervously, "How much can I sell these three patents for?"

"Well, our cooperation with enterprises is mainly divided into two types: one is the direct transfer of patents, which is a one-time fee; the other is the licensing of patents, which can be exclusive or licensed to multiple enterprises."

"There are two main models for patent licensing fees. One is that the contract is negotiated directly, with the company paying a certain amount upfront and then paying a certain amount of usage fee every year thereafter."

"Another method is to collect patent fees from the sales revenue of the products they produce using the patent, according to a pre-agreed percentage."

"The specific fee structure will be determined by taking into account the value of the patent and the wishes of the patent client."

"Your three patents, including that smart camera, should fetch a transfer fee of several hundred thousand if transferred directly. If you want a higher fee, you'll probably have to wait."

"If we adopt a commission-based approach, I conservatively estimate that it should be no problem to earn tens of millions."

No sooner had Zhou Min finished speaking than Cheng Zhao exclaimed in surprise, "Tens of millions?!"

"Yes, tens of millions. The other two patents don't have that much commercial value, but they're definitely worth several million."

Cheng Zhao didn't ask any further questions at this moment, but his rapidly bobbing Adam's apple was enough to show that he was moved.

Seeing his increasingly vacant gaze, Zhou Min smiled and took out the contract she had prepared earlier.