A Shenzhen-based company that was China's first to sue a US counterpart for an intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement, has said that it will keep on with its efforts to protect its rights in the future.

When Netac Technology was given a patent in China, in 2002, for its flash USB disk technology it said that it was the world's first. Two years later, it got a patent in the United States, and patents in Europe, South Korea and Singapore followed.

Then, in 2002, Netac sued Huaqi, a Chinese leader in the sector, and Sony in 2004.

In 2006, it took a US company to court over a patent dispute. All of these cases ended in a compromise, but gave the company's image a boost.

The company came out with a new series of USB flash drive this past Sept 21, called the guocui series, or 'national quintessence'.

Cheng Xiaohua, the company's president, said, "This product represents the leading USB flash drive technology and is proprietary."

Cheng went on to say, "For innovative enterprises like Netac, inventions are only the first step.

"Protection follows but is crucial. Before we went public in 2010, we made some progress in IPR protection overseas, which gave us market confidence.

"But, it often takes a Chinese firm much longer to obtain a patent overseas than it does our foreign counterparts."

Cheng said he is expecting a better climate for Chinese companies in applying for patents overseas, and a more "equal examination period and fairer treatment".

In a previous interview, company insiders said that they expected to have patents in all the major countries by 2015 and that Netac had a professional team to handle IPR issues.

Every step of the way is examined by supervisors efficiently.

Cheng told China Daily that they will, for profits and growth in cloud storage and wireless storage, expect them to be a new departure area for Netac.

China Daily

(China Daily 09/28/2011 page17)