i-Witness

Will innovation and IPR suffer if technology is patented?

June 1, 2006

What do you see when countries negotiate in the bilateral and multi-lateral trade agreements? I see perpetual catching-up in economic divides if we are not careful when dealing with issues that involve patents, copyrights and intellectual property rights.

That said, it’s quite disturbing to hear that Malaysia will pass the Patents Act (Amendment) Bill as the country has decided to accede to the Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT) by the end of 2006.

As it is, apart from the PCT, Malaysia is also acceding to three additional treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), namely the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT), the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) and the Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Micro-organisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure, or in short, the Budapest Treaty.

Patents can be easily related to escalated costs in building quality of life, and there is sufficient evidence to support this argument, with patented medicines as a solid example. Patented anti-retrovirals administered on AIDS patients used to be US$15,000 per patient per year. The generic versions, which are just as safe and effective, are US$150 per patient per year.

Continue reading "The devils called Patent & FTA" »

Posted by Jeff Ooi at 07:12 PM | Permalink | Conversations (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Technology is meant to improve life, not to aggravate it

May 16, 2006

How did you file your income tax returns this year, by manual submission or e-Filing? Let me tell you this, I tried e-Filing. I gave up, and returned to paper submission.

Despite the hype, the Inland Revenue Board just isn’t ready with the electronic tax returns processes. My benchmark is the electronic visa application process employed by the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, which has a similar methodology. You need Internet connection, filling of electronic forms and final output in PDF. It’s done in a jiffy, as all information submitted electronically will be verified with the government’s backend databases. In contrast, our IRB is half-baked with their processes, with loopholes in between.

Continue reading "From e-Filing to e-Flying" »

Posted by Jeff Ooi at 07:11 PM | Permalink | Conversations (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Broadband penetration, local content, and liberalising telco industry

May 1, 2006

Before becoming the Minister of Energy, Water and Communication in 2004, Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik manned fort as the Minister for Primary Industries. His tenure took him through the rigorous period of massive development during the late 1980’s and the doldrums of the Asian Financial Crisis. It was his mettle in the palm oil industry that has unquestionably helped ascertain Malaysia’s continued foreign exchange income during those stormy years of the late 1990s. Despite the extended economic gloom, palm oil outshined other commodities in export revenue and provided the country much shelter in managing its fiscal shortfall that seriously impacted the neighbouring countries.

However, sitting in his new ministry where water, energy and communications industries are housed in one, his responsibility tripled. Leaving energy and water industries aside, to what extent is he going to leave behind a legacy that equalled his days spent in primary industries?

Currently, he has a plateful of unresolved issues. Fast-track broadband penetration; propelling the development of content to make broadband pervasiveness relevant; mobile-number portability; faster broadband speeds, operators’ lukewarm response to the registration of prepaid cellular service users. All are in a deadlock. How are to further liberalise the telecommunications industry when the telcos continued to resist the country’s public policies?

Continue reading "Keng Yaik’s legacy?" »

Posted by Jeff Ooi at 07:07 PM | Permalink | Conversations (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When beating competitors simply means making them irrelevant

April 16, 2006

When big corporations as diverse as Nintendo and Cirque du Soleil are adopting ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ in their marketing campaigns, you better watch out. Smart CEOs around the world are having a new book for their bedtime reading.

The book is titled: ‘BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant’ co-authored by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne (Harvard Business School Press, 2005). It deals with new approaches to tackle competition in the market place.

In the book, the authors use the ocean as a metaphor to describe the competitive space in which an organisation chooses to swim. Red oceans refer to the frequently accessed market spaces where the products are well-defined, competitors are known and competition is based on price, product quality and service. In other words, red oceans are an old paradigm that represents all the industries in existence today.

In contrast, the blue oceans denote an environment where products are not yet well-defined, competitors are not structured and the market is relatively unknown. Companies that sail in the blue oceans are those adept at beating the competition by focussing on developing compelling value innovations that create uncontested market space.

Kim and Mauborgne’s book is based on a study of 150 strategic moves that spanned more than a hundred years (1880 – 2000) and thirty industries. Ther authors argue that tomorrow’s leading companies will succeed not by battling competitors, but by making strategic moves which they call “value innovation”. It’s a grand design to create powerful leaps in value for both the firm and its buyers, unleashing new demand, thus rendering rivals obsolete.

Continue reading "Blue Ocean Strategy" »

Posted by Jeff Ooi at 08:38 AM | Permalink | Conversations (5) | TrackBacks (0)