Revised PCT Fee for 2010

The following International Search Authority (ISA) has announced that the search fee for PCT will be revised from 1 January 2010:

Korea KRW 1,300,000 (44% increase) from KRW 900,000, approximately MYR 3,772 from MYR 2,432 for applications filed in English. The official fee announced by MYIPO for November is MYR 3,163. The official fee charged by MYIPO is usually higher than the official search fee to take into account exchange rate risk and bank charges. If the November fee is used as a guide, the estimated search fee in 2010 for Korea is MYR 4,555. The search fee for applications filed in Korean remains the same at KRW 450,000.

The following ISA search fee remains the same.

Australia AUD 1,600 unchanged, approximately MYR 5,076 and officially MYR 5,134 in November.

European Patent Office (EPO) EUR 1,700 unchanged, approximately MYR 8,700 and officially MYR 8,916 in November.

Korea ISA is popular among PCT applicants from Malaysia due to its competitive rate. Applicants from Malaysia have a choice of Australia, EPO or Korea to be nominated as ISA. Other ISA offering competitive search fees are Austria EUR 200 (MYR 1,024), China CNY 2,100 (MYR 1,100), Japan JPY 97,000 (MYR3,770), and Russia RUB 13,500 (MYR 1,583). China signed an MOU with ASEAN this month to increase IP cooperation. We hope that China will be one of the ISA authorized by MyIPO for ISA. We also wonder if MyIPO has any dream to become an ISA someday.

We encourage applicants to file PCT by 31st December 2009 to avoid the fee increase.

DAP gives go-ahead to Rocket cafe

The DAP central executive committee has given its approval to a group of party members and supporters to set up the Rocket United Cafe in SS2/63 here and use the party’s logo on its signboard, said the head of secretariat for the DAP secretary-general’s office, Foo Yueh Chuan.

She said the approval from the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) was secured for the cafe’s signboard and business premises on Aug 18, adding that the objective of the cafe was for the party to increase its reach to Malaysians.

“It is also to make available services such as voter registration and the registration for state benefits, such as the Mesra Usia Mas and the Tabung Warisan Anak Selangor,” she said in a statement here yesterday. -The Star

Geox SpA

The founder and president of Italy’s largest footwear brand, Geox SpA, shares about his true calling – designing and marketing shoes.

MARIO Moretti Polegato grew up in a family that had been in the wine business for three generations. He even studied wine technology at the University of Ferrara in Italy.

He is the founder, president and biggest shareholder of Geox S.p.A, Italy’s largest footwear brand and the world’s second largest footwear brand in the lifestyle casual leather shoe category.

The story goes that one day in the 1990s, after he finished promoting his family wine at an exhibition in Reno (not far from Las Vegas), he went for a walk in the desert. To soothe his overheated feet, he used his Swiss knife to cut holes in his sneakers’ rubber soles. That was his eureka moment.

“Later, when I came back to Italy, I introduced a new (shoe) technology. I utilised a special material that we call the membrane, which is water-proof and breathable at the same time because it is made with millions of micro-pores,” Polegato says.

“These pores are smaller than a drop of water. The vapour from our skin is 700 times smaller than a drop of water. So perspiration goes out through the pores but water (from outside) won’t come in.”

Polegato had created the world’s first breathable rubber-soled shoes.

Immediately he patented the technology in Italy, and today he has patented it in other countries as well, covering Europe, Asia and America.

Not everyone shared Polegato’s enthusiasm, however. “I offered this technology to the large footwear companies in Italy, Germany and America, but incredibly, nobody believed in me.”

In the end he decided to produce the shoes himself in Italy.

He spent three years to find a partner and set up Geox in 1995.

Explaining the name, he says Geo is Greek for earth, “because when you’re walking, the best walk is when you walk barefoot – feet on the ground. X is a technology symbol.”

Polegato started Geox with just five employees, all from the Montebelluna area, which is about 7km from Crocetta del Montello.

The employees were assigned specific responsibilities, from marketing to production. Today, 14 years hence, Geox employs directly and indirectly 30,000 people (including those employed by companies contract manufacturing its products) and is listed on the Milan Stock Exchange.

“Entrepreneurs should invest more in innovation, collaborate more with universities, and invest more in young people, because this is the key to win against the competition in the future,” he says.

Polegato, who has taught on intellectual property in various universities, emphasises the importance of creativity. “An idea,” he states, “is worth more than a factory.”

Polegato believes that everyone can walk in his footsteps and be as successful.

“Everybody has the possibility to repeat my experience, my story, because everybody has a brain that can be utilised.” -StarBiz