Early from the establishment of the company, the company had been fully aware of the importance of intellectual property rights, the well-established intellectual property system can not only strictly protect the important technologies which the company invested with all of its efforts, but also defend against the competitors from using intellectual property lawsuits to achieve commercial competition. Hence, the company had formed the legal & IP department since its inception to actively build and implement intellectual property related management measures. Meanwhile, the company has continuously revised the relevant management measures promptly subject to the updated laws and regulations, and reviewed the execution status regularly. Externally, the company actively obtains the applications and registrations of intellectual property rights from the competent authorities of various countries, and regularly reviews competitors’ acquisition of intellectual property rights to effectively protect the company’s intellectual property rights.

Current Intellectual property management system

 

I.Protection of Patent and Integrated Circuit Layout

• The company formulated the “Patent Management Regulations” to reward employees for patent proposals. It may not only enhance the quality and quantity of patent profile, but also properly protect and manage the patent profile by stipulating the clear patent prosecution procedure, ownership of patent rights and patent review committee.
• Regularly review the patent assets, effectively implement the patent assets to Company’s products, and avoid any infringement from third parties, also consider the licenses or sales of patents, for the purpose of maximizing the usage of patent assets.
• Provide the patent prior search report to R&D team before the kick-off procedure of any new product, conduct the competitors’ patent search and make the patent map, for avoiding any infringement claim of intellectual property rights from third parties, also preventing any waste of R&D resource.
• File the Integrated Circuit Layout Applications to protect important IC layouts.
• Hold patent training courses for R& D team, promote the patent knowledge and encourage R& D team to propose the patent proposals.
• While conducting the technology co-development with any external companies, clearly regulate the ownership of intellectual property rights within the contract, such as patent rights, and request the entrusted companies to guarantee its non-infringement of any third parties’ intellectual property rights, and having the indemnification clause within the contract in the event of any violation, for ensuring the interest of the company.

 

II.Protection of trade secret

• The company formulated “Trade Secret Management Regulations” and “Information management procedure”, for the physical access control of company’s doors and information, and management requirements for any technical, business related documents and computer files, in order to safely protect company’s trade secret.
• All the new employees shall sign the employment agreements to commit their compliance with the confidentiality obligation during employment, and attend trade secret related training courses and have tested after on-board.
• The company shall announce and disseminate the trade secret regulations on its internal website, quarterly announce the above regulations by email, and provide yearly training courses accordingly.
• The company has established the “R&D Journal management regulation” for safe-keeping of any technologies developed by R&D team during product research and development.
• Sign the non-disclosure agreements with all the customers and suppliers, for properly protecting trade secret of all parties.
• Conduct trade secrets audit by yearly, make all the departments clearly understand and recognize their managed trade secrets and safely protect such trade secrets.

 

III.Protection of trademarks

• Actively obtain the company and subsidiaries’ trade names and trademarks for the identification of products, review and manage the trademark list regularly, extend the exclusive right of trademarks according to the terms of registered trademarks, for the assurance of effectiveness of trademarks.
• Effectively exercise the trademark rights in accordance with the approved trademarks to enhance the distinctiveness of registered trademarks, avoid improper infringement of trademark rights by third parties, and reduce the company’s goodwill.
• In order to ensure the legally and reasonably use of trademarks, the license scope, terms and marking method of trademarks shall be clearly stipulated within the contracts with all the distributors, agents and suppliers.

 

IV.Protection of copyright

• In order to protect the company’s copyright, clearly stipulate the ownership of copyright which employees created during work within the employment agreements.
• All the software installation permissions were controlled and managed by Information Technology Department in order to avoid any possibility of copyright infringement.
• Clearly stipulate the ownership of copyright within contracts with cooperated parties, and request the cooperated parties to indemnify the non-infringement of any third parties’ intellectual property rights.

 

Implementation Status

The company will report the implementation status regarding the intellectual property rights to the Board of Directors each year, the latest report date was December 28, 2023.

From the establishment of the company, the implementation situation for intellectual property system is illustrated as follows:

• From 2010, the company conducts employees’ computer audit and trade secrets dissemination quarterly for the strength of trade secrets and information security management.
• From 2010, the company conducts R& D journals audit for safely protection of the trade secrets of important technologies.
• From 2012, the Legal & IP department of the company conducts intellectual property related training courses for new employees, and hold seminars by external lecturers on topics related to intellectual property rights for specific departments to strengthen employees’ awareness of intellectual property rights.
• From 2017, all the software installment permissions were controlled and managed by the company’s Information Technology Department in order to avoid copyright infringement.
• From 2018, revise and publicize the Trade Secret Management Regulations to fully protect the company’s important R&D, production technologies and business
• From 2021, regularly report the annual intellectual property management and development strategies to the President of the company by yearly, and draw up the annual intellectual property development plan.

 

I.The acquisition of intellectual property rights

Until November 30, 2023, the total number of the company’s global granted invention patents has reached 272, and 71 granted utility model patents while the total invention patent applications has reached 71.
 

II.Integrated Circuit Layout right

Until November 30, 2023, there were 3 granted integrated circuit layouts.
 

III.Trademark

Until November 30, 2023, there were 16 granted global trademarks.