How to go about setting up an MSC Status company

Many people have heard of MSC Malaysia Status companies. They have always wondered whether they too can set up one and get to enjoy the many benefits of attaining the prestigious MSC Status. Truth be told. You can get an MSC Status company up and running if you are that determined to do so. It is not that difficult anyway. Here are some pointers that will help you if you are interested to have an MSC Status company in your stable.

MSC Status is opened to both local and foreign companies. Unlike in some restrictive countries, you can have a hundred percent equity even if you are a foreigner. There are big and small foreign companies operating in MSC Malaysia. Some of the big names include Microsoft, IBM and Motorola. They normally set up base in MSC to do research and development. There are about 2500 companies with MSC Status and local setups makes up three quarters of the total.

When MSC was started in 1996, the idea then was to attract world class companies to bring their technologies here. Malaysia was then interested in information technology. It was then the in thing to do, and Malaysia came up with a plan to build a township to house all and sundry to research, develop and make information technology products and services. The original MSC hub was about seven thousand acres and was built from the ground up. World class infrastructure was laid with fiber optics cable, planned roadways and transport systems, affordable housings and a multimedia university to boot.

As activities expanded, MSC Malaysia has roped in other satellite areas (called cybercities) in the country and to accord them the MSC Status as well. For companies to be accorded the MSC Status, it has to be sited in the MSC designated area. As more companies have achieved MSC status, there was a need to extend the MSC area to other less developed regions in the country. As a result of the decentralization move, new areas have been accorded MSC status including Penang, Kedah, Johor, Malacca and even in Sarawak. There are also other purpose built areas and enclaves in Kuala Lumpur as most of the MSC Status companies find it necessary to locate in the capital.

Today, MSC Malaysia has expanded its activities to multi-media animations, outsourcing companies, educational setups, technology incubators, biotechnology, bio-pharmaceuticals and new materials. So with the expanded scope, entrepreneurs will easily find something that they can do. The MSC Malaysia is a government initiative, and being one that is being run with a ten point bill of guarantee, it has attracted world attention. It has help create over twenty thousand knowledge workers and thousands of high technology companies. It is a shining example of a twenty first century vision of what an advance economy model should be.

For a better understanding about obtaining MSC Status, go to MSC Status Insights

My Gene is your Gene?

According to the books of Myriad Genetics, it is legally correct to be granted a patent on DNA sequences as long as they are claimed in the form of ‘isolated DNA’. Myriad had threatened anyone else using its patented method to test for breast cancer gene! But many others disagreed and among them were the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who were deeply concerned because accordingly, granting a gene patent is morally wrong (in reference to the USPTO).

The repercussions were dire as it would mean that what has been given by Mother Nature has now through a stroke of the pen belonged to some erstwhile lab testing company. The public protestation even brought in Public Patent Foundation, who together with ACLU sued Myriad. The case was subsequently heard in the US District Court. The presiding judge, Robert Sweet, subsequently invalidated Myriad’s gene patent saying that ‘nature’s law’ should not be considered a patent as there was nothing new. However, Myriad will be appealing the judgment and the case will most probably move its way to the US Supreme Court. The final verdict will have great repercussions for mankind and everyone will be watching because a part of their body’s ownership is being contested!

Patents are serious matters, but understanding what they are and how they can be optimized and to benefit you will need much reading and digestion. You can start by visiting How to go about increasing the value of your intangibles

Piracy can't be contained in China

In a recent hearing, the US House of Foreign Affairs Committee was briefed on the seriousness of the lack of China’s protection of intellectual property rights. According to the report, it was found that 80% of PC software used in China was illegally copied. In reality, the figure could have touched ninety percent as a large number of software used in rural areas which was outside the surveyed area were suspected of being cheap rip offs. An indication of the extend of piracy is the increasing number of court cases.

What exactly is being pirated in China? Computer software is one of the most popular items that get copied around. It’s easily done, without people noticing, and with very little enforcement by the authorities, people just treat illegal copying as legal. Now, if you want to check on software, you have to check it at the company offices, and that cannot be done that easily. There are walls all over the place, security barriers to go through before you can get to the computers. When authorities did manage to penetrate these barriers, users are tipped off immediately; the result is that no copies of pirated software are found. Neither is home users easily napped for using illegal copies.

Of greater concern is the ease of obtaining illegal copies of movie DVDs. It is one of the hottest entertainment items. You can virtually get a copy anywhere and at dirt cheap prices. The network of illegal DVD pushers is so extensive that the moment one of them is being caught, three others are being recruited. It is the poor man's tobacco, so you don’t have the heart to arrest them for going illegal! From the point of view of the government, arresting procurers of pirated DVDs will make people angry with the government. It is therefore logical to close one eye and make the people happy, least they form a revolution and change the whole government.

Get to read more about China IP at China Patent Idea

What are your job options if you have a degree in law?

If you have been trained in law, then you should choose to practice in law. Unfortunately, not everybody knows what is best and in many instances, when they chose to take law in college, they did so without any clear idea of what they want to do. Youngsters normally follow the advice of their parents, and some parents really like their children to take up one of those prestigious jobs like lawyer and medical doctor. So, just to be obedient, children just obeyed their parents and pursue a course that sounds glamorous but not what they had wanted to do in the first place. And law students are one of the more maligns of the lot. You can study law and be knowledgeable about law, but to practice it in court is another thing all together. Luckily, law students need not begrudge about their predicament as there are other careers that are equally satisfying. Here are a few of them.

Legal Officer

You will find that there are many companies both large and small that employ a technical person knowledgeable in law. There are contracts to be made between company and employees, contracts with clients, legal documents to be enacted and of course there are trademarks to be pursue and in certain cases, patents and copyrights to enforce. All these will require a legal person to undertake and prosecute. So, there is a need for a legal entity and in some large corporations, there might be a need to have more than law officer, each specializing in various fields.

Knowledgeable in intellectual properties

With many companies having built up their intellectual property (IPs) portfolios, there is indeed a need to have an in-house legal advisor on IPs on the team. Companies used to treat IPs as something that came about out of the blue and they only find the need to ask their IP lawyer for advice when there is a need for it. It is of course costly to consult an outside IP attorney, who would most likely charged by the hour. Depending on the type of business, most large companies should employ an in-house team knowledgeable in IPs. Enforcement of trademarks will be better done with a full time officer who can track what is happening, as infringers can come from anywhere in the world. For those that have valuable patents, it is more cost effective to have a team member who knows how to go about enforcing its intellectual property rights.

There are of course other matters that require a person trained in law, like a private practitioner who deals with will drafting. As properties and inheritance become hotly contested items, having a proper and timely drawn up will is becoming very important for the family just so that they won’t be squabbles later on. And of course, not forgetting that there is also an increasing demand for law lecturers in colleges and universities, so going out and teach what you have learned can be very satisfying. As economies get more sophisticated, many countries have found that they have inadvertently become also more litigious among its citizens. It would not be too far fetch if the companies of tomorrow find the need to have at least a member among themselves trained in law. You never know who is watching who now and taking people to court is just so common that companies would be better off equipped with a management that knows what constitutes a legal move.

More about job creations at Just more job creations

This is where a world trade war begins

In late 2009, with world recession bringing out the worst in economies, and after many great financial stimulus campaigns, China came out with new conditions for bidders of Chinese government procurements. It now demands that companies bidding for government tenders will have to have intellectual properties (IPs like patents and trademarks) originating from China. What it means is that foreign companies will have to register their IPs in China first, and preferably even relocate their R & D to China before they can qualify for Chinese government tenders. This must be one of those new defense strategy that the Chinese are so familiar about; Sun Zhu war strategy. China might have foresaw the unreeling of the world economies! They are perhaps pre-empting the collapse of the world economy. With the big economies reeling from economic stagnation, any form of trade protection will easily start a trade war. Indeed, one has already started.

To make it worse, Google said it will withdraw from the China market come April 2010 after telling the world that its site has been hacked and the Chinese government putting up censorship requirements on its operation. There was also the issue of intellectual property thefts. The China market seems has to be a no go area for foreigners. China's priority seems to be to safeguarding its own economy first, and does not care about what happens to the rest of the world. With China expecting to be the second largest economy in the world comes 2011, whatever happens in China will greatly affect the recovering of the rest of the world’s economy. Already, China is winding down its ownership of US treasury papers in early 2010, with the effect of causing the value of the dollar to be destabilized, and followed by a rise in oil prices, the rest of the world can only just watch by. Is China factoring in the fall of the dollar and the collapse of the US economy, or is it more concerned with its own financial stimulus plan which has to be dis-continued? Perhaps bringing some funds back to China and help propping up its domestic economy is a safer bet?

However way we look at it, 2010 could end with great upheavals, if not in the Americas, then perhaps in the EU. There is just too much rot in the developed countries and very little solutions to cure those ills. Over in the US, job creation just seems to be unsustainable. There is money in the banks, but nobody dares to borrow for fear of not being able to repay loans. As a result, most industries are just opting to sustain themselves by hiring workers only as a last resort and by contracting workers on a monthly basis. With the major economies stagnating, and some economies on the brink of insolvency, and when shove comes to push, there is a real danger that economic walls will be the only option. But if a trade war indeed comes about, then when looking back, we will surely have to nail its cause to the housing crisis back in the US in mid 2008. Will we learn any lesson then? Not likely! Its laissez faire as usual!

Your MSC status company benefits

Would you want to startup a company and get all these benefits? It is called the MSC status company benefits and they are:-

• Getting Pioneer Status (on easy terms) - 100% exemption from taxable statutory income for ten years.
• A 100% Investment Tax Allowance (ITA).
• Freedom to source capital and borrow funds from any sources.
• Duty free import of sophisticated multimedia equipment (DFI) for your enterprise.
• High-powered one-stop agency to assist your business startup.
• Easy remittance of fund out of the country with a no hassle policy.
• No undue censorship of the Internet.
• Freedom to importing knowledge workers.

There is this jewel of a place where you can startup your business and get loads of incentives including financial, logistical and market access. It is called MSC Malaysia. If you are into new media, information technology, animations, biotechnology, bio-medicines, bio-pharmaceuticals, new materials, generic medicines, and alternate energy, then MSC Malaysia is the place to be. A government development center, MSC houses all the big names of industries like Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Shell, DHL, Ericsson and many others. It does not matter whether you are big or small; all it takes is that you have something new and potential and you would like to share it with the world. MSC sits at the center of over two billion population and growing fast by the day. It also has the world’s largest free trade agreement encompassing China, Australia, Japan, Korea and ASEAN so you will have no complaints about the market. Would you not blink your eyes? If you are interested, surf over to
MSC Status benefit to learn more about this jewel of a place.

Does a Rapid increase of number of patent filings in China indicate its trading prowess?

The statistics shows that in a year where everyone is trying to recover from the financial crisis, there is a dip in the amount of intellectual property filed with the various bodies. According to a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) statistics, there has been a reduction of PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) filings from around the world by as much as 4.5% in 2009. There are no surprises here. One main reason being that people are busy trying to salvage their companies in the light of dipped sales. It would only be logical that some of those funds earmarked for use in intellectual filings be allocated to something else that is more life threatening. However, looking deeper into those stats revealed that in contrast to the Western countries, the Eastern block of countries comprising China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan shows an increase. IP filings can wait. Indeed, China became the fifth largest PCT filer with a strong growth rate of 29.7%, representing some 7,900 international applications. These figures are giving those technocrats in Washington nightmares. In the same period, the US filing rate fell by over 11 percent. But does a fall in filing an indication of trouble, or for that matter does an increase indicate a great prowess?

On the surface, it does seem as a troubling sign when the IP filings dip because IP filings always precede the actual output of products, sometimes by three to four years. If there is a continuous decline for a few years, it will result in a declining growth for the future. However, IP filings today is quiet different from years gone by. The phenomenon started when the USPTO begun granting patents to software and business processes in the eighties. The result was an immense surge in the number of IP filings from all quarters. It was like a gold rush, notwithstanding that IP filing cost went up by several notches. It was more like every Tom, Dick and Harry putting in their last dime for a piece of cake. Fast forward to the days when in China, already swelled by a large and surging direct foreign investment, together with plenty of government encouragements, people were beating each other to file whatever they have in hand, never mind if it qualifies at all of being patentable or not. The factories were running at almost peak levels and the people running the R & D department had to do their share too. So it was a race of sorts; a race to beat your fellow men to see who is more sophisticated.

From the point of sophistication, it would not be surprised to find that there is very little matter in the China filings. Most of the patents don’t belong to those cutting edge types. Indeed, most of them are just variation of existing items. It is more of like patent splashing. You just go out and buy yourself a few cans of paints and start to splash it all over the place, like painting graffiti. That is just what is happening in China, and to a lesser extend in Taiwan and Korea. There will not be any revolutionary technology coming out from there. We can be sure that in another decade or so, those products with a make in China tag will not change the way we do things, like what Apple, or even Google had pioneered the way of life as we know of it now. The reason is because people’s mind takes a long path towards innovation and that has not occurred in China as it occurred in the west. It takes time and plenty of space. In particular, a space of free enterprise and an entrepreneurial spirit that is not constrained by the state and authorities. China has been a great factory backyard helped mostly by American money and buying power. In its endeavor to catch up with the west, it has invested a lot of money in enlarging its pool of technocrats and engineers, but sadly to say, you need something more to be able to bake that cake. You need freedom, freedom to explore, and freedom to do what you like, without having to be fearful of going against the grain.