Chuan and Jing joined a wholesale company together just after graduation. Both worked very hard.
After several years, the boss promoted Jing to sales executive but Chuan remained a sales rep. One day Chuan could not take it anymore, tender resignation to the boss and complained the boss did not value hard working staff, but only promoted those who flattered him.
The boss knew that Chuan worked very hard for the years, but in order to help Chuan realise the difference between him and Jing, the boss asked Chuan to do the following. Go and find out anyone selling water melon in the market Chuan returned and said yes. The boss asked how much per kg Chuan went back to the market to ask and returned to inform boss the $12 per kg.
Boss told Chuan, I will ask Jing the same question. Jing went, returned and said, boss, only one person selling water melon. $12 per kg, $100 for 10 kg, he has inventory of 340 melons. On the table 58 melons, every melon weighs about 15 kg, bought from the South two days ago, they are fresh and red, good quality.
Chuan was very impressed and realized the difference between himself and Jing. He decided not to resign but to learn from Jing.
My dear friends, a more successful person is more observant, thinks more and understands in depth. For the same matter, a more successful person sees several years ahead, while we see only tomorrow. The difference between a year and a day is 365 times.
Think! how far have you seen ahead in your. life How thoughtful in depth are you.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
FAQ's (Frequently asked questions and Answers on Patents
A patent is a grant of a property right by the Government to the
inventor. The United States Constitution provides for Congress to
provide for patents to encourage useful inventions.
inventor. The United States Constitution provides for Congress to
provide for patents to encourage useful inventions.
The patent itself provides a detailed description of the invention,
and how it is used or how to make it. Thus if you obtain a patent you
can not keep the matter secret, which is the province of Trade Secret
Law.
A patent enables the owner to exclude others from making, using or
selling the invention for the life of the patent.
How long does a patentabilty search take?
Answer: It can take anywhere from seven to 14 days.
What's involved in completing the patent application?
Answer: What you have to do as an inventor is work with the patent
lawyer to explain how to "make and use the invention." That is, you
must explain your invention to the patent attorney so that one of
average skill in that field could make and use it "without undue
experimentation." This means that a person who needs to make and use
your invention from reading your patent should not have to do any
inventing. They should just be able to make and use the invention
based on what we teach in the patent and their own knowledge of the
field.
What types of invention are patentable?
Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any
new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or compositions of
matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.
Such an invention must fall within one of four main classes of
inventions to be patentable:
It may be a process (such as a method for manufacturing a product);
It may be machine;
It may be an article of manufacture; or
It may be a composition of matter which relates to chemical
compositions, including mixtures of ingredients and new chemical
compounds.
Recently, courts have affirmed that certain computer software is patentable.
Design patents may be granted to any person who has invented a new,
original and ornamental design for an article of manufacture. The
appearance of the article is thus protected.
Plant patents may be granted to any person who has invented or
discovered and asexually reproduced any distinct and new variety of
plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found
seedlings, other than a tuber-propagated plant or a plant found in an
uncultivated state.
How long does it take for a patent to issue?
Answer: Three years on average. You cannot sue anybody until the
patent issues, although you get increasing protection from the moment
you file.
How long do patents last?
Answer: A patent lasts 20 years from the filing date of the patent application.
After that 20 years expires, can they re-patent it or is that it?
Answer: That's it for the original invention. However, any
improvements made during that 20 year time period can be patented and
those patents can extend beyond the 20 year term.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Survived careers in the wave of Recession
# Security – No matter how bad the financial crisis gets, the need for security shall not decrease. Jobs like firemen, police, law enforcement officers, customs and security services, forensics, and shop security personnel may even need more skilled personnel during the recession.
# Healthcare – The need for skilled nurses, doctors, psychologists and psychotherapists, analysts, caregivers, medical assistants, physical therapists, home health aides, medical records staff and health information technicians will hardly decrease and may even grow during the recession.
# Education – The need for trained teachers and some other skilled people in the core processes of the education industry in highly populated growth areas remain constant during recessions and will probably remain so now.
# Personal Care – Barbers, hairdressers, beauticians and cosmetologists also could keep their jobs. Businesses in the upmarket range might lose customers but those who cater to downmarket needs will probably survive.
# Legal Professions – Skilled professionals in the claims and compensation sectors, or those dealing with bankruptcies, and contractual disputes usually see more work during recessions.
# Food Industry – People can’t give up eating even during a recession. Cheaper take-aways and eateries would need more staff ready to work at lower pay to function than luxury restaurants, which may not have enough customers.
# House and Car Repairs – Skilled house repair servicemen like plumbers or electricians in densely populated areas didn’t lose their jobs during previous recessions. Though not many new houses are being built, emergency repairs are vital. We might drive older cars, but they need to be serviced and repaired. Cleaners will still be needed.
# Environmental Sector – The demand for skilled professionals in environmental health and protection has been constant and is not likely to diminish during the recession.
# Sales and Marketing – Business need to market more aggressively in hard times. Skilled marketing and salespeople working on commission pay basis would keep their jobs even during the recession days.
# IT and Accounting Services – IT services need to function always. Skilled people working to provide accounting and IT-related services in core business functions would still be in high demand throughout the recession and more during the next upswing.
# Healthcare – The need for skilled nurses, doctors, psychologists and psychotherapists, analysts, caregivers, medical assistants, physical therapists, home health aides, medical records staff and health information technicians will hardly decrease and may even grow during the recession.
# Education – The need for trained teachers and some other skilled people in the core processes of the education industry in highly populated growth areas remain constant during recessions and will probably remain so now.
# Personal Care – Barbers, hairdressers, beauticians and cosmetologists also could keep their jobs. Businesses in the upmarket range might lose customers but those who cater to downmarket needs will probably survive.
# Legal Professions – Skilled professionals in the claims and compensation sectors, or those dealing with bankruptcies, and contractual disputes usually see more work during recessions.
# Food Industry – People can’t give up eating even during a recession. Cheaper take-aways and eateries would need more staff ready to work at lower pay to function than luxury restaurants, which may not have enough customers.
# House and Car Repairs – Skilled house repair servicemen like plumbers or electricians in densely populated areas didn’t lose their jobs during previous recessions. Though not many new houses are being built, emergency repairs are vital. We might drive older cars, but they need to be serviced and repaired. Cleaners will still be needed.
# Environmental Sector – The demand for skilled professionals in environmental health and protection has been constant and is not likely to diminish during the recession.
# Sales and Marketing – Business need to market more aggressively in hard times. Skilled marketing and salespeople working on commission pay basis would keep their jobs even during the recession days.
# IT and Accounting Services – IT services need to function always. Skilled people working to provide accounting and IT-related services in core business functions would still be in high demand throughout the recession and more during the next upswing.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
A word to Politicians
Politician's keep it in mind always
"A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own."
H.G. Wells (1866-1946)
"A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own."
H.G. Wells (1866-1946)
Saturday, January 16, 2010
LPO vender selection
New to Legal process outsourcing?
First, remember that trusting the vendor you ultimately choose is very important. If there is cynicism in your mind, the relationship will not succeed.
Choosing the vendor: For solos like you it is not always advisable to go after the big names. You won’t be the largest client for them and therefore not always high on their priority list. One big client and your work will be de-prioritized. Choose a mid-sized vendor, who has certain advantages that work in his favor, may be a non-metro location or may be attractive stock options for employees or whatever, such that he is able to provide you with quality resources and commitment to service. Make sure you meet the vendor before you start regular work with them. This may mean sitting in a coach seat for a trip half way round the world, but if the relation works out and grows, it will be worth the backache and the bad food!
Confidentiality: It is just natural to be worried about the confidentiality of the documents you send offshore. India and Indians are no better or worse when it comes to protecting the confidentiality of data, so take the same amount of caution as you would in your country. There are vendors who might be able to do the work cheap for you but let’s face it, there is no way for you to know or control a situation where your work is floating around to sub-contractors of the vendor who couldn’t care less for confidentiality. So don’t take this lightly and take utmost care to build confidentiality into the contract that you sign with the vendor with heavy penalties in the event of a violation.
Conduct pilots: Good looking websites, impressive management profiles, ISO standards for data security are great first level of filters in your due-diligence process. However, you must ensure that the vendor has people who can deliver according to, or close to, what you need. It may be a long call to expect training to help parrots to analyze for you! Conduct pilot projects with the vendor, paid pilots if you have to. Usually some research or draft that has already undergone your scrutiny and efforts can make for a good pilot.
Train your people: No one knows more about your style and nuances better than yourself, so the best teacher for people who work for you is you. Train the team who works for you on law, research and analysis, drafting, etc. Having said that, make sure your vendor respects the fact that you spent effort in training their people and that your intellectual property is not used beyond what you permit. Also, make sure you work with the vendor to help him retain the people you train.
Try and increase the skill of the people: Just as your coaching job does not stop at the initial training when you hire in your own country, having a resource offshore is no different. Conduct constant feedback sessions for the people who work for you. Such sessions don’t have to be elaborate: inline comments, regular teleconferences and occasional video-conferences, if both your vendor and you have access to, are enough. Start with low complexity work for your offshore resources and over time (few months or as applicable) increase the complexity of the work that you send offshore. For example, if you are a patent prosecution lawyer, start by asking the vendor to conduct searches, gradually moving the writing the more descriptive sections and over a longer period of time moving to claims drafting. Work with your vendor to draft a guidebook for your style. Conduct periodic tests for the people who work for you. They will value it.
Meet them: Agreed, physically seeing your vendor or his resources may not be often possible. But do it when it is possible, combine an Asian vacation with a day’s visit to your vendor’s premises. Speak to your team often. Form a relation; it matters a lot to Indian people if you ask about their family, interests and aspirations.
Form a group: You must realize that you will not be the largest client for your vendor, so you cannot always have very pressing deadlines and too much iteration beyond the original scope of work agreed. The simple lesson there is that, scope your work carefully and don’t leave it to the first draft to realize what all should have or should not have been done. Like it or not, in this world, might is right. Therefore, do form a loose association or a group of people in your profession who can pool together to have enough regular work for a couple of vendor’s people (or more, depending on your specific case), if you can. Having a predictable inflow of work is also good for your vendor and thus you (or your group) will always be an important client for him.
Legal Body Shopping: This isn’t a common form of practice in the LPO space and I am not aware of a prior use of this phrase, but do work with your client to see if it is possible to form an arrangement where the people who work for you can be trained at your location for sometime and then sent back to the vendor’s location but dedicated for your work for a committed period of time. This notion worked very well for IT companies and their western clients in the 90s. Move to Full-Time Employee (FTE) model when possible for you, it boosts productivity, reduces costs and helps increase the complexity of work that you can get done offshore.
Billing rates: You are in it for long and for value. As with any other relation, getting it to work to your benefit will take time and effort, so don’t nickel and dime about the rate too much. As the saying goes, if you pay only peanuts, you get only monkeys!
Be nice: Give references to the vendor, if you like them. Doing so will make the vendor always respect you, your work and your demands. Seeing friends benefit from LPO, a notion that you introduced to them, will only make you popular and respected! After you have become confident of the quality of the work product, share it with your clients and pass on the benefits to your clients. You are sure to gather a lot of goodwill doing so. However, make sure your vendor does not poach your clients, make the relation work to your benefit.
First, remember that trusting the vendor you ultimately choose is very important. If there is cynicism in your mind, the relationship will not succeed.
Choosing the vendor: For solos like you it is not always advisable to go after the big names. You won’t be the largest client for them and therefore not always high on their priority list. One big client and your work will be de-prioritized. Choose a mid-sized vendor, who has certain advantages that work in his favor, may be a non-metro location or may be attractive stock options for employees or whatever, such that he is able to provide you with quality resources and commitment to service. Make sure you meet the vendor before you start regular work with them. This may mean sitting in a coach seat for a trip half way round the world, but if the relation works out and grows, it will be worth the backache and the bad food!
Confidentiality: It is just natural to be worried about the confidentiality of the documents you send offshore. India and Indians are no better or worse when it comes to protecting the confidentiality of data, so take the same amount of caution as you would in your country. There are vendors who might be able to do the work cheap for you but let’s face it, there is no way for you to know or control a situation where your work is floating around to sub-contractors of the vendor who couldn’t care less for confidentiality. So don’t take this lightly and take utmost care to build confidentiality into the contract that you sign with the vendor with heavy penalties in the event of a violation.
Conduct pilots: Good looking websites, impressive management profiles, ISO standards for data security are great first level of filters in your due-diligence process. However, you must ensure that the vendor has people who can deliver according to, or close to, what you need. It may be a long call to expect training to help parrots to analyze for you! Conduct pilot projects with the vendor, paid pilots if you have to. Usually some research or draft that has already undergone your scrutiny and efforts can make for a good pilot.
Train your people: No one knows more about your style and nuances better than yourself, so the best teacher for people who work for you is you. Train the team who works for you on law, research and analysis, drafting, etc. Having said that, make sure your vendor respects the fact that you spent effort in training their people and that your intellectual property is not used beyond what you permit. Also, make sure you work with the vendor to help him retain the people you train.
Try and increase the skill of the people: Just as your coaching job does not stop at the initial training when you hire in your own country, having a resource offshore is no different. Conduct constant feedback sessions for the people who work for you. Such sessions don’t have to be elaborate: inline comments, regular teleconferences and occasional video-conferences, if both your vendor and you have access to, are enough. Start with low complexity work for your offshore resources and over time (few months or as applicable) increase the complexity of the work that you send offshore. For example, if you are a patent prosecution lawyer, start by asking the vendor to conduct searches, gradually moving the writing the more descriptive sections and over a longer period of time moving to claims drafting. Work with your vendor to draft a guidebook for your style. Conduct periodic tests for the people who work for you. They will value it.
Meet them: Agreed, physically seeing your vendor or his resources may not be often possible. But do it when it is possible, combine an Asian vacation with a day’s visit to your vendor’s premises. Speak to your team often. Form a relation; it matters a lot to Indian people if you ask about their family, interests and aspirations.
Form a group: You must realize that you will not be the largest client for your vendor, so you cannot always have very pressing deadlines and too much iteration beyond the original scope of work agreed. The simple lesson there is that, scope your work carefully and don’t leave it to the first draft to realize what all should have or should not have been done. Like it or not, in this world, might is right. Therefore, do form a loose association or a group of people in your profession who can pool together to have enough regular work for a couple of vendor’s people (or more, depending on your specific case), if you can. Having a predictable inflow of work is also good for your vendor and thus you (or your group) will always be an important client for him.
Legal Body Shopping: This isn’t a common form of practice in the LPO space and I am not aware of a prior use of this phrase, but do work with your client to see if it is possible to form an arrangement where the people who work for you can be trained at your location for sometime and then sent back to the vendor’s location but dedicated for your work for a committed period of time. This notion worked very well for IT companies and their western clients in the 90s. Move to Full-Time Employee (FTE) model when possible for you, it boosts productivity, reduces costs and helps increase the complexity of work that you can get done offshore.
Billing rates: You are in it for long and for value. As with any other relation, getting it to work to your benefit will take time and effort, so don’t nickel and dime about the rate too much. As the saying goes, if you pay only peanuts, you get only monkeys!
Be nice: Give references to the vendor, if you like them. Doing so will make the vendor always respect you, your work and your demands. Seeing friends benefit from LPO, a notion that you introduced to them, will only make you popular and respected! After you have become confident of the quality of the work product, share it with your clients and pass on the benefits to your clients. You are sure to gather a lot of goodwill doing so. However, make sure your vendor does not poach your clients, make the relation work to your benefit.
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