The OpenChain Project held its first China Work Group meeting on the 25th of September in Shenzhen. This event was kindly hosted by Huawei and featured attendees from companies as diverse as Baidu and DJI. It provided an excellent opportunity to build our first bridge into one of the world’s largest markets, and we received excellent local support, including via simultaneous translation.
The OpenChain Project was introduced from first principles. A significant focus was on how country work groups, as in Japan and Korea, provide added value through two way sharing of material between local regions and the international market. A key point was that local groups operate best in their local language, and this has worked well in practice for the OpenChain Project since the inception of such activities in December 2017.
We were joined at the event by Keith Bergelt, CEO of Open Invention Network. Their activity in building a community of patent non-aggression around the Linux System with over 3,000 participants highlighted how IPR management can effectively balance open source and portfolios.
The event included two open sessions for discussion and – as we concluded – it was provisionally discussed that the next event may take place in December at Baidu in Beijing. We look forward to next steps!
