Written by NCKU Innovation Headquarters
National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) has signed a five-year Patent Subscription Agreement with Intel Corporation. Subject to this agreement, Intel will receive a list of granted patents provided by NCKU. Currently, Intel has signed similar patent subscription agreements with several renowned institutions in the world, including the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Illinois, the University of Virginia, , the University of Calgary in Canada, Nagoya University in Japan, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. NCKU is the only university in Taiwan to establish such relationship with Intel.
Pursuant to the annual subscription fees paid by Intel, NCKU will quarterly provide a list of granted patents to Intel for their evaluation. Intel may exercise its option to acquire a non-exclusive license on any NCKU patents after paying the licensing fees.
NCKU has long excelled in industry-academia collaborations, particularly in patent licensing, technology transfer, and startup incubation. According to the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, NCKU has achieved a perfect score of 100 in industrial income for four consecutive years, ranking it alongside the world's top universities. Over the past four years, NCKU's industry-academia collaboration research grant has reached NT$25.65 billion in total, averaging over NT$6.4 billion received per year, in which approximately 24.3% contributed by industrial corporations.
Recently, NCKU has been strived to transforming its industry-academia operations, and proactively built linkages with domestic top enterprises to establish the “Co-research Centers.” These centers, co-founded by some international companies like Yageo, ASE Group, AU Optronics, TSMC, Quanta Computer, Accton Technology, Lite-On Technology, and Delta Electronics, will devote themselves in cutting-edge technology research and high-level talent cultivation with significant financial supports. Over the past three years, the total funding for these joint research projects has reached NT$500 million.
In addition to leading in industry-academia collaborations, NCKU has made significant performance in technology transfer and patent licensing. Since 2009, the technology transfer fees earned by NCKU has consistently surpassed NT$100 million per year, in which the cumulative amount has exceeded NT$3.6 billion and the actual payment has reached NT$1.1 billion, making it to be the only university in Taiwan to complete this milestone. Moreover, both the contract amount and actual payment have surpassed NT$100 million per year in a row since 2020, with annual averages of NT$290 million for the former and NT$100 million for the latter respectively. The key for NCKU to maintain this advantage lies in enhancing the quality of intellectual property rights and diversifying the channels of commercialization for research outcomes.
NCKU's impressive performance in intellectual property management is evidenced by its patent application and granted numbers. Over the past four years, NCKU has filed 460 patent applications in total and ranked top 1 among Taiwanese universities in domestic invention patent applications for three years. Additionally, in 2023, NCKU ranked 82nd globally in granted US patents. These achievements can be attributed to the Patent Application Quality Review System introduced in 2018, and currently about 60% of new patent applications are filed through such quality review system. The licensing ratio for granted patents has remained 18%, higher than the average rate of 5% to 10% in foreign universities. The growth of patent licensing ratio has increased 21% compared to 2017, and the portion of patent licensing fees in total technology transfer fees has grown over 50%, indicating the significant contribution of uplifting the academic intellectual property quality and benefits through this quality review system.
Currently, NCKU is constantly developing strategies to further enhance the benefits of patent review system, and will focus on upstream research topic prioritization to improve NCKU’s topic selection skill and talent cultivation in order to better align with industry needs. Through diagnostics and assistance provided by professional IP consulting firms, NCKU plans to select certain internal research teams to develop a self-operating technology research and intellectual property coordination mechanism. The collaboration between Intel and NCKU will provide a new mechanism to facilitate commercialization opportunities and monetization of NCKU's patents derived from research outcomes.