So, I’ve decided I’m not interested in teaching anymore and my brother is buying my house from me, which should give me about 2.5 million ntd in equity.
I’m going to use the money to start my own business.
My idea is to help small to medium enterprises in Taiwan, and later China, get patent and trademark protection in Europe.
I’ve been working as a patent consultant for a friend in the uk for over a year, part-time, and now we’re going to partner up to expand into the market over here.
Because I’m not a licensed attorney, but have 8 years of experience as a patent examiner at the ukipo, I will make gaining protection in Europe more affordable while still providing expert services and advice.
I’ve done a bit of research and apparently the EPO gets around 700 patent applications from Taiwan every year, so I’m planning to try and tap into the market.
Only 700 a year? That seems surprisingly low given the number of tech companies in Taiwan. Are you sure that’s the total number of applications from all Taiwanese SMEs, or is that including the big companies too?
@electronisk hasn’t been active on Forumosa for ages but he’s been patent consultant in Taiwan for decades. He filed many patent applications for me with good results.
Basically, my idea is to educate SMEs about how the system works.
You can save a lot of money by filing for a search with the ukipo first, then you have a year to file at the epo and claim priority from your UK application.
The ukipo and epo use exactly the same search software, and get very similar results. So you’re getting an epo search for a fraction of the cost.
Congratulations on starting a business in Taiwan. The hardest part for me and many others is customer acquisition. Define your perfect customer avatar. Customers need good reasons to choose you over others and to see the value. It may seem obvious to you because of your background but people like myself may not get it. Perhaps have some online or in person workshops to educate people about the value and process?
I have a product that I’d like to protect in the US but unsure about how to go about it or if it is worth it. I’m probably not unique in that I’m busy doing other things and don’t have the time to study all the ins and outs.
I did ODM and OEM work with two Taiwanese partners for years and never had any trouble finding customers because they found us first. Once I started developing my own products though I discovered how hard it is to sell potential customers on your ideas, no matter how good they are.
In my experience there used to be a lot of foreigners doing product development in Taiwan but all the ones I knew have moved on or out at this point. Newcomers seem to be mostly going the digital nomad route.
