Nov.2 (China Daily) -- As China advances its Internet Plus strategy, high-tech companies in Shanghai are embracing a closer bond between traditional businesses and cloud-computing technology.

They are leveraging their intellectual property resources to boost industrial progress.

"We are poised to extend from digital TVs to the greater video industry," said Xia Pingjian, president of the National Engineering Research Center of Digital Television.

Different from the DTV model, where operators and administrators of the broadcast network are separate from those of websites, the greater video industry will be more integrated, Xia said.

Called the "future media network", the new industry will enable content to be accessed through TVs, the internet, mobile phones and other terminal devices, barrier-free and concurrently.

"It will provide historic opportunities for Chinese manufacturers to catch up with their overseas peers," Xia said.

As one of the global TV industry's heavyweight players, China has developed a complete industrial chain, from content production to manufacturing of a variety of terminal devices and broadcast technology.

The country is home to more than 3,000 TV stations and has the largest TV audience in the world, he added.

Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that 140 million color TVs were made in China last year, more than half of them being smart TVs.

"Due to improved optical fibers, chips and computing capabilities, TVs and the internet have already been integrated into the video business," Xia said.

Setting national DTV production standards, the program is, in essence, a research and development platform serving the entire industry, the president said.

With a necessary patent pool, which contains scores of patents required to access the industry, his company has signed deals for authorization with transmitter and tester manufacturers, whose production capacity accounts for approximately 85 percent of the country's total, he revealed.

Negotiations with chip makers are ongoing, he added.

The global TV industry has stepped up research into core technology and standards concerning next-generation media network over the past five years.

In particular, manufacturers from South Korea and Japan, two other major TV production hubs, paid greater attention to related patents, he noted.

"Once an electronic is popularized, its profit margin will shrink a lot," he said. "Thus manufacturers' ultimate competitiveness, or their survival in the market, depends on patents."

Considering that China is a powerhouse of the international television industry, NERCDTV is promoting its technological standards worldwide.

The United States began to solicit technological solutions from around the world for a new generation of DTV standards in 2013.

Eleven bids, including one from a joint team comprised of NERCDTV and two Chinese research institutes, were all from major producers and researchers.

Five sets of technological modules in the Chinese proposal, which involved scores of patent filings, were adopted by the US after two years of evaluation, marking the first time that Chinese-developed digital technology has been incorporated into foreign industrial standards, according to the company.

"The inclusion into the US patent pool has totally changed the situation of China not contributing to the generation of overseas standards, and left future cross-licensing possible," Xia said.

"International standards are still a rich country's game, but we hope to get more smaller economies involved, especially those along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road," he said.

"We need to be aware of the world's needs when developing technological standards, rather than merely presenting them with a finished set of standards that has no consideration of the differences between such countries."

Thus NERCDTV started the Future of Broadcast Television Summit in 2001. The annual event has since attracted major broadcasters, manufacturers and researchers from around the world to explore probabilities of rolling out universal digital standards for the global industry.

According to Li Fugang, president of Shanghai Upper Bio-tech Co Ltd, cloud-computing technology can facilitate the sharing of information between hospitals, patients and medical equipment manufacturers.

Li's company produces large medical machines designed for large hospitals and portable testing equipment for families and community clinics, with exports to more than 40 countries and regions.

"Our target is to increase accuracy, efficiency and automation of our medical facilities," Li said.

As China's medical reforms take hold, people are growing more aware of their right to know about their own health.

Enabling data transmission and providing services via mobile phones and the internet is a development trend in the medical equipment industry, Li noted.

With the help of cloud-computing technology, his company can develop and maintain a huge client database for further analysis.

"It is just a first step. We still have a long way to go," he said.

He paid little attention to intellectual property issues before, as his focus was on product quality and cost control.

Yet after receiving training from the local government, he said he came to realize that IP is not a barrier, but rather a way to improve brand-building, protect innovation and share technological prowess.

"We need to conduct thorough research with due diligence before entering targeted markets, and make adjustments in our marketing strategies accordingly," he said.

2016-11-02