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Two years ago, the Ministry of Education stopped providing subsidy for vocational schools to participate in invention exhibitions. This drastically reduced the number of gold medals acquired by Taiwan. The amount of patent applications has also been affected and the public is worried about Taiwan losing advantage in the invention field.

China Times reports, according to statistics, the number of Taiwanese participants in world prominent invention exhibitions, such as the International Exhibition of Inventions of Genova and the Moscow International Salon of Industrial Property “Archimedes,” has declined 30 to 40 percent.

Applications fees for these exhibitions can reach up to NT$50,000 (approximately US$ 1,577) per person, which is too expensive for students without subsidy from the Ministry of Education or from their schools.

The secretary-general of Chinese Innovation and Invention Society, Wu Zhi-yao, doubts the necessity of the Ministry of Education cutting the NT$ 2 million (approximately US$ 63,200) subsidy for attending exhibitions from the education budget of NT$ 2 trillion (approximately US$ 63.2 billion). Wu says the ministry should limit the number of applications rather than cut the entire subsidy budget.

Wu also points out that data has shown only three out of a thousand patents in Taiwan can be commercialized, which is much less than the 1% of foreign countries.

Wu Dong-xing, principal of Da Yeh University, has attained 145 patents from Taiwan, China, the US, Japan and South Korea. He says the government’s patent strategy is not protective enough, and foreign manufacturers often easily confiscate the concept of our inventions and refine them into products.

He calls on authorities to think about how to protect our inventors from perspectives regarding patent and industrial industries instead of obsessing over the number of research papers.

Translated by June
Edited by Olivia Yang

Sources:
China Times
China Times
Liberty Times