I talked to my colleague who asked my opinion for methods to improve innovation among Malaysians. My advise is to encourage students to be interested in solving scientific problems first. He was in favour of teaching students how to program or how to design electronics components. I am not in favour of this because it is just a waste of time and money.
In fact, I do not see Malaysians as lacking in innovations. We are all humans so rely on innovations for our survival. We are just as innovative as anyone in the world, even in USA or Japan. In fact, Malaysians are more innovative than Germany as well. The trouble is, in what areas are we innovative?
Malaysians are very good at ass-licking, conning, cheating, bribing, and making connections. I am hopeless in these areas. I cannot even make head or tail how to be successful in these areas. However, these are skills are necessary for the survival of Malaysians in Malaysia. If you do are not innovative in those areas, especially making connections, you will not be successful.
Very common people in Malaysia say that it is not what you know that makes you a success, but who you know. This is very true in Malaysia, but they do not realise that it is not true in advanced countries like Japan and Germany.
Japanese and Germans are well know to be very rigid and disciplined, to the point of being viewed as idiots. Compared to the British, Americans and French, the Japanese and Germans are not so innovative in so many things, but as far as success is concerned, Japan and Germany beat the others handsomely, because the British, Americans and French are more flexible in ways at which innovation can go. For Malaysia or other less developed nations, you know which direction it would be,
Even in technical terms, Malaysians are also innovative. I see my cousin, who build boats, being innovative in building and operating his boat. Except that there is no way for him to protect his invention anyway MYIPO is more interested in protecting the inventions of multinationals than protecting Malaysian inventions and therefore all intellectual property rights. Imagine, taking 5 years to analyse my invention, and after 5 years, they cannot even see the difference between 2 motors versus 1 motor.
What chance have you got if your inventions are not as distinct as that? Or not supported by a University? A Malaysian University at that. Even a Malaysian University's filing is treated like that.
If you are still not convinced of the innovation of Malaysians, let us compare myself with my childhood friends. I have file inventions with tittle likes Zero Aerodymic Drag and Perpetual Motion Heat Engines, and 4 others, and yet I cannot beat my friends in our childhood games. I ended up copying them.
Rubber seed battles. They know how to choose the proper seeds. Fill them with wax and various ways of hitting the seeds such that my seed will be destroyed. Ah, these are games. So what, people can get rich just by playing games.
It is not a question of how innovative a person, but how innovations are recognised and evaluated. Just attend our UMS PEREKA exhibitions. So many of them there but zero patent protection. Patent filing is not patent protection, it is patent theft. A very sleek way of stealing your ideas.
The moment you file your patent, all over the world, people can copy your invention. If you file and process the patent in Malaysia but not in other countries, you are not protected in the other countries, but Malaysia will make public your invention, so people from other countries can steal your inventions.
What if you have a very good invention that is most useful? If you do not have money to invest in it, better keep it a secret. If you cannot keep it a secret, then patent it, but NEVER IN MALAYSIA. Better in countries with the economic might and really appreciate patents. It is getting rare now. Even USPTO is no longer conducive to inventions. UKIPO is also bad, worse than USPTO, so slow but not as bad as MYIPO.
Japan is better. It appreciates inventions but the cost is high because you need to translate your inventions and other things. The Japanese market is also small.
Despite the small size of the Japanese market, their inventors managed to gain enough profit to expand its market overseas. Imagine that instant noodle is a Japanese invention, the most famous of all. To me, it is nothing compared to our instant noodle. Soto. More delicious and fresh, but since it is not patented, no way we can develop it into mass market, unlike the Japanese Instant Noodle.
That is the importance of patenting is to allow investors to get a return of their investment to your invention. Without any patent protection, it is suicidal, if you want to invest considerable amount of money developing any invention.
So, why not file in MYIPO? No, because UKIPO is cheaper and faster. Within a month, you can get a preliminary search. The search result is only slightly stupid compared to MYIPO, but you can get it within weeks, instead of the 5 years it took MYIPO.
After receiving the preliminary search result of UKIPO, you can decide to proceed or not. Because of the stupid comments by UKIPO patent examiners, I was more confident of myself. By delaying, I lose a little money, a few pounds, but because of my confidence, subsequent patent filing was done with immediate payment for comprehensive search.
My confidence was justified because the comments by UK patent examiners are just as stupid. Just imagine an invention that clearly stated to rely on hard plates, can be equated to an invention that rely on soft plates? Not as obvious as 2 motors versus one though.
Why not just give out for free? It is already free the moment you file it, but because the invention is not approved, there is ho protection for any investor, so your ideas, no matter how useful they are to humanity, will just go to waste.
My inventions are actually designed to combat global warming, and UKIPO has a policy to expedite environmental inventions, but this is just a false promise.
My inventions are:
Zero Aerodynamic Drag,
Optimum Hybrid Vehicles,
Zero Energy Transportation,
Perpetual Motion Heat Engines,
Optimum Collision Damage Reduction Systems.
If we invest heavily in these technology, humanity will advance, Without any patent protection, better do not develop them. Just wait for subsequent improvements so people can patent them instead.