Developing China market of
technology
Reach agreement in
technological sector
At the
beginning of 2002, tablets drives made in China were blocked in customs in
several countries of Europe, because the manufacturers had not settled the
rights of the used patents. Afterward, Philips, Sony, and Pioneer began a legal
battle in front of the European Court of Justice, pressing the Chinese
manufacturers of tablets drives so that they pay the rights of the used
technologies. Initially, the wanted payment was 20 US dollars by reader, sum
considered as too high by the Chinese part which put forward an only 90-dollar
sale price by device. Later, they also reached agreements with other companies
for the payment of rights: 4 % of the sale price or 4 dollars by reader to NEC,
Panasonic, Toshiba, JVC, Mitsubishi, and Time Warner, 10 dollars to DTS, 4,95
dollars to Dolby Laboratories, and 2,5 dollars with Mysimax.
More recently, Thomson, the partner of TCL, asked for the payment of 1 or 1,5
dollars by reader, according to his place of sale, in China or abroad. According
to Daxue Consulting, at least 50 million tablets were made in China in 2003,
the total sum in game is thus very important.
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| Daxue Consulting provides market research tools to analyze high-tech sectors in China |
Practices in Chinese
economy
Such
practices are typical of the Chinese industry during the last ten years.
Multinationals gradually relocated the manufacturing of their electronic
consumer goods of the United States and Japan towards Singapore, South Korea,
Taiwan and Hong-Kong, and then towards China and other countries to the cheap
workforce. They use the patents of key technologies as levers and concentrate
on the development of the technologies of the next generation of these
products.
China is
supposed to absorb and to assimilate these technologies imported to develop
gradually national products and progress in the technological scale.
Unfortunately, it does not so take place. Situated at the end of the chain, China
has other choice no than to continue to pay for the use of foreign
technologies. At the same time, the homogenization and the everyday acceptance
of these products pull the Chinese firms in valuable wars.
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Example in manufacturing
sector in China
According
to SJ
Grand, the phenomenon does not limit itself to the industry of electronic
consumer goods. Let us take the example of Legend, the main Chinese
manufacturer of tablets staff. In 1998, it exceeded IBM and became leading on
the Chinese market. But as said by Liu Chuanzhi, his president, the company
especially played a role of "locomotive (banyungong)" for the technologies.
