Chapter 35: Sell Patents?
Linhai Deli Electric Power Branch Top Floor Office.
“General Manager Ma, this is what just arrived from Xinghai.”
The secretary handed over a paper-wrapped package and then retreated out.
Ma Gaosheng took the package in his hand; it was very light, containing roughly just a sheet of paper.
He wasn’t in a hurry to open it, his gaze showing amusement as he thought to himself: ‘Finally couldn’t hold out anymore? Coming to beg for mercy?’
Nowadays, most of the major enterprises in the industry with high-voltage radio business knew about what happened in Linhai. But apart from the cooperation with San Xin Group on a 200 million contract, the other enterprises had all tacitly remained silent without any comment.
Ma Gaosheng knew that they all saw him as a vanguard.
He slowly tore open the express packaging, and what came into view was an invitation letter.
“Sincerely inviting a representative from your company to attend our press conference three days from now.”
Looking at the salutation, Ma Gaosheng showed a hint of smile. Was this planning to do public bidding?
He didn’t care about the bidding; forcing Xinghai to this point was already a success. He believed headquarters would give Xinghai a satisfactory price for the rest.
Based on his understanding of Vice President Ye Hongzhi, he should have been prepared for this point long ago.
Thinking this way, he dialed Ye Zong’s telephone, and Ma Gaosheng couldn’t hide his excitement in his tone as he shared this news.
Ye Hongzhi replied in his usual flat tone: “Got it.”
After hanging up, Ma Gaosheng lit a cigarette and leaned back leisurely in his comfortable office chair, his mind wandering to the scene three days from now.
Xinghai.
Jin Qiaoying clicked her high heels ‘click click click’ all the way to Fan Ren’s office door, didn’t knock, and directly pushed it open and walked in.
Liu Jun finally caught up belatedly behind her; seeing this scene, he thought about it and decided to leave it to Second Brother to handle himself.
‘Bang’, the door was closed.
As soon as Jin Qiaoying entered the office, she saw Fan Ren sitting up startled from that folding bed, looking at her with a frightened expression; that head which had grown some stubble was especially conspicuous.
“General Manager Fan, good evening.”
“Good.”
Fan Ren subconsciously replied, then quickly climbed down from the folding bed, thought for a moment and said ‘wait a moment’, then ran to the bathroom for a hasty wash-up.
When he came out again, he saw Jin Qiaoying sitting very familiarly in front of the sofa, fiddling with that tea set he had basically never used.
He really couldn’t handle this thing; he mostly just threw tea leaves into a cup and poured hot water directly to brew and drink.
But the Jin Qiaoying in front of him was clearly very skilled with these; soon, a fragrance of tea wafted over.
“General Manager Fan, please.”
Looking up at Fan Ren who was dazed on this side, Jin Qiaoying smiled faintly at the corner of her mouth; her phoenix eyes with long eyelashes blinked lightly, showing a hint of playfulness.
Fan Ren nodded, picked up the cup from the front, and took a gentle sip.
It was indeed much better than what he brewed in his big tea mug; he drank it all in one go before realizing this wasn’t the time to think about that.
“Um, General Manager Jin, this is?”
Hearing this, Jin Qiaoying’s face instantly became pitiful: “To think I believed San Xin and your Xinghai got along the most harmoniously. Didn’t expect Younger Brother here to tell me nothing.”
Her words left Fan Ren baffled; San Xin was the first to sign a patent authorization with Xinghai from the start, and later they reached a cooperation project on the factory; the two indeed got along very well.
But he didn’t understand that last sentence.
Seeing Fan Ren like this, Jin Qiaoying put on another pitiful look, making Fan Ren’s head spin.
“Um, General Manager Jin, I don’t quite understand what you mean?”
He was too lazy to guess and directly asked.
Hearing this, Jin Qiaoying’s charming face froze for a moment, then returned to her shrewd demeanor.
“Then I’ll be direct: on behalf of San Xin Group, I’m offering 5 billion to fund the purchase of your high-voltage wireless charging patent right, and during the subsequent patent validity period, we will keep the patent usage rights free for Xinghai.”
After saying this, ignoring Fan Ren’s surprised expression, she continued: “I see no need for you to do public bidding, Younger Brother; Sister came this time with full sincerity.”
He then suddenly understood; this was his fault.
To maintain some mystery, the invitation letters sent to each didn’t specify the exact matters three days from now.
With this back and forth, plus Xinghai’s recent situation not being a secret in the eyes of those paying attention, they surprisingly all misunderstood it as Xinghai doing a public bidding for selling patent transfer.
He annoyedly rubbed his somewhat prickly scalp; this matter was ridiculously mishandled.
“Hey, actually you don’t need to feel bad; to say something harsh, Sister thinks you should have directly sold the patent right at a high price from the beginning. At this time point now, the money in our hands is all invested in market expansion, so we actually can’t come up with a number that satisfies you.
But you should also know that apart from us few, no one else would be interested in this patent.”
Jin Qiaoying spoke to herself, looking at Fan Ren with a hint of pity in her eyes.
In her view, Xinghai with no background trying to break into the market now expanded to a market value of hundreds of billions just relying on this one patent was clearly wishful thinking.
Look, even a mere manager from Deli Electric Power Linhai Branch had suppressed Xinghai’s expansion dead in its tracks.
Don’t think those clauses in the previous contract about not deliberately suppressing; that was only on the surface—behind the scenes, if others were shameless, they could target you, and Xinghai had no countermeasures.
Selling the patent early was the wisest choice, not thinking of selling the patent right at this point of being forced into a dead end.
San Xin being able to come up with 5 billion in cash was already by drawing from other departments’ budgets; she couldn’t take out more.
As for the other few, it was about the same.
“No, General Manager Jin, you’ve misunderstood.”
Fan Ren quickly shook his head, and to prevent further misunderstanding, he hurriedly said: “Xinghai isn’t selling patents; this is my fault. But there really is a need for secrecy, so it wasn’t stated in the invitation letter. Sigh, really, don’t look at me with that gaze.”
Jin Qiaoying didn’t believe it at first, but with Fan Ren’s extremely firm attitude, she doubtfully asked: “Really not?”
“Really not.”
“Then why send invitation letters? You know how much effort I put into raising these funds.”
“My fault, my fault. General Manager Jin, be magnanimous and don’t hold it against this small person.”
Before Fan Ren finished speaking, Jin Qiaoying angrily stood up and walked toward the door; he kept apologizing from his mouth and hurriedly chased after her.
“Ah!”
Jin Qiaoying made a sudden stop, and Fan Ren directly bumped into her.
He quickly reached out to steady her virtually; luckily nothing bad happened, and Fan Ren awkwardly said: “Sorry, sorry, are you okay?”
She stood still without minding; how could anything happen? She wasn’t made of paper.
Jin Qiaoying didn’t mind, walked back to the sofa and sat down, then her gaze fell on Fan Ren: “Say it then; made me come for nothing, and for this 5 billion I even drew funds from other departments.”
Fan Ren followed and sat back on the sofa; he was also thrown off rhythm by this woman and without much thought said: “Press conference, to be precise, new product launch.”
“What new product does Xinghai have again? But to speak bluntly, Sister, in the high-voltage wireless area right now, basically all types of products have been successively developed by us few; I don’t see much hope for Xinghai to stage a comeback in this area.”
Fan Ren nodded; this woman in front of him at least up to now had no bad intentions, and what she said was the plain truth.
After hesitating a bit, under Jin Qiaoying’s impatient gaze, Fan Ren said: “General Manager Jin, if you trust me, with three days left, I suggest San Xin clear out the inventory in the lithium battery department and sell off raw materials as much as possible.”
Jin Qiaoying opened her mouth with a hint of bewilderment wanting to press, but was interrupted by Fan Ren waving his hand.
“General Manager Jin, anything further is business secret; please forgive me for not being able to tell.”
The reason for keeping the solid-state battery news hidden was mainly fear that these big enterprises would try to rush out solid-state batteries within these three days and release before Xinghai.
Patent descriptions were all clear; anyone paying attention could check them. Moreover, solid-state battery essentially replaced traditional liquid electrolyte with bone extract.
Fan Ren had no doubt that given these big enterprises three days, they could complete research and development breakthrough and make the finished product.
Although he had the patent, he feared getting dragged into lawsuits and haggling. Xinghai didn’t have the energy to deal with that.
Being the first to hold the new product launch, clearly stating that Xinghai Technology was the first to make the battery, and the patent ownership was also Xinghai Technology.
Releasing these two pieces of information together unexpectedly and preemptively would avoid haggling in the future with certain shameless companies.
