Shanghai, China – Recently, Shanghai MicroPort Medical (Group) Co., Ltd. ("MicroPort®") was selected as a pilot project of Patent Alliance of Enterprises in Shanghai Zhangjiang National Innovation Demonstration Zone. The project was initiated by the Management Committee of Shanghai Zhangjiang High-tech Industrial Development Zone and Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration to promote the development of the Patent Alliance through government funding. Its aim is to enhance the dynamic technical innovation and competitiveness through the Alliance, foster strengths of each member to form a long-term and stable win-win situation, and accelerate technology application and synergetic innovation.
The pilot project of MicroPort® is under the Patent Alliance of Minimally Invasive Medical Device Enterprises, which consists of companies of minimally invasive medical device industry and other emerging healthcare technologies. Oriented by the market and boosted by intellectual property policies and industrial innovation resources, the Alliance will promote the cooperation and reciprocity between its members, establish the 'patent pool', encourage innovation, help them to commercialize their innovative technologies, provide solutions to the problems related with intellectual property, andreduce costs and enhance efficiency for innovation. Currently, the Alliance is composed of 12 members.
Intellectual properties, especially patents, are the core competitiveness of advanced medical device enterprises. As the leader of high-end medical device industry in China, MicroPort® focuses on independent innovation all the time. Owing to an improved intellectual property management system and inventor incentive mechanism, employees of MicroPort® are eager to innovate and apply for patents. Until now, MicroPort® has filed more than 1700 patent applications, on average every two employees owning one, and has won several significant awards and honors including 3 Chinese National Science and Technology Progress Awards and appointed as one of the first batch of National Intellectual Property Advantage Enterprises. MicroPort® being selected as the project leader of Patent Alliance of Enterprises in Shanghai Zhangjiang National Innovation Demonstration Zone means its ability of continuous innovation, intellectual property management and patent operation is fully recognized. In the future, based on its unique innovation model, MicroPort® will actively try to recruit new research institutes and companies to join the Alliance to promote the construction and expansion of the Patent Pool of minimally invasive medical device related key technologies, to improve the operation capability of intellectual property and build an open innovation service platform within the Alliance, to maximize the Alliance members' exemplary and radiating role in technical innovation, and ultimately to promote the development of Chinese medical device industry .