Chapter 104 Zero-sum game

Eve Kali: "Are you talking about the patent "A New Method for Text Judgment, Screening and Comparison"?

That patent is an algorithm patent in the subdivision field of natural language processing "word meaning screening".

Word meaning discrimination used to be a very important research direction in natural language processing.

But these were all seven or eight years ago.

Precisely because of the attention it received, many universities in the United States devoted a certain amount of energy to research in the direction of word meaning discrimination.

As of today, there is not much to research in the subdivided field of word meaning screening.

Except for a few people who are still delving into the direction of vocabulary identification in professional fields, almost no one is doing this direction.

For most scientific researchers, this is already a very old research direction."

Ewald Cherry: "You mean to say that LIN HUI's re-proposing an ancient direction is an attempt to dig holes for future generations and lead others to the wrong technical direction?"

Eve Carley: "Maybe, anyway, this kind of 'burning the bridge across the river and then building a bridge in the wrong direction' is a common thing in the scientific community.

But do you think it is necessary for LIN HUI to do this? He is already far ahead."

Ewald Cherry: "Perhaps your patent can be a magical help in identifying vocabulary in professional fields?"

Eve Carly: "It's impossible. When I studied that patent, even from today's perspective, I could only process some simple texts, and it was impossible to deal with those professional vocabulary.

If it weren't for the fact that the idea of ​​that configuration was innovative to a certain extent, it would be in line with the innovative principle of the patent.

I feel like I couldn’t apply for this patent back then.”

Ewald Cherry thought for a while and said: "So you think it was the configuration in your patent that attracted LIN HUI's attention?"

“Although this patent had certain innovations in configuration, these are all things of the past.

Technology is developing very fast, and many technologies that were developed one or two years ago are now outdated.

Not to mention the technology from seven or eight years ago.

The most critical thing is that the algorithm patent was not considered advanced when it was proposed.

All in all, the patent from back then is of no use today.

Such patents may have some reference value for laypeople who have never conducted NLP research.

And LIN HUI has even made a breakthrough in text summarization, one of the most classic problems in NLP. Why would you be interested in this kind of theoretical research for introductory NLP?

I now seriously doubt the reliability of your source. Are you sure LIN HUI really wants to acquire that patent? I really can’t figure it out.

I feel like this patent is given away for free and no one wants it, after all, you have to pay a fee on a regular basis.”

Ewald Cherry: "Well, if you really want to give it away, please consider me first. After all, this is a patent worth seven hundred thousand dollars."

Eve Carley: "Seven hundred thousand dollars? Are you sure you're not kidding?"

Ewald Cherry: "Maybe I can joke, but real money can't joke.

If you don’t believe it, you can log on to the patent trading website and check it out. LIN HUI even offered a price of US$700,000 for your patent.

If you really want to sell.

You only need to upload all legal documents related to "A New Method for Text Judgment, Screening and Comparison" on the patent trading website.

After these legal documents are reviewed, you can conduct transactions with LIN HUI.

The transaction is also very simple. On the purchase interface issued by LIN HUI, you only need to click to confirm the transaction.

After that, you just need to wait for the transaction funds to arrive in your bank account.

The whole process didn't even take ten minutes.

If this is a 'joke', I wish this 'joke' would happen to me.

Although I have not had much academic achievements in recent years, I still applied for many patents in the early years..."

Eve Carly thought to herself, forget about those patents.

Any patent listed is always marked with an asterisk:

A new type of video detection method based on frame extraction image analysis, based on...

A dignified doctor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), doing sideways every day is simply a shame for MIT.

…

Eve Kali used an idle computer in Ewald Cherry's office to log into the official patent trading website of the U.S. Patent Office.

In the search bar, after Eve Carly typed "LIN HUI".

You will enter the personal public interface of LIN HUI.

In this interface, Eve Carly can not only see the public patents owned by LIN HUI's personal patent column.

You can also see a series of developments in LIN HUI’s intellectual property rights.

In the dynamic list of LIN HUI, Eve Carly discovered that LIN HUI is indeed seeking a series of patent acquisitions.

As expected, the patent "A New Method for Text Judgment, Screening and Comparison" is among the patents that LIN HUI is seeking to acquire.

Moreover, the intended purchase price offered by LIN HUI was actually US$700,000.

Although this acquisition price is not the most expensive of the several patents that LIN HUI is seeking to acquire.

But US$700,000 is considered a relatively high price.

Although she has always lived in an ivory tower, Eve Carly does not have no concept of money.

She works at the MIT Natural Language Processing Research Center.

His main salary is about the same level as that of an assistant professor, and his annual salary is about a little over 140,000 US dollars.

Of course, this is just salary.

After counting all kinds of messy project bonuses, she can also have an after-tax income of more than 300,000 US dollars.

In other words, the purchase price of US$700,000 before her now is almost equivalent to her income from two years of work.

Seven hundred thousand dollars is undoubtedly a windfall for her.

But will pie really fall from the sky?

Eve Carly shook her head disapprovingly.

Ewald Cherry: "Are you unwilling? This is a rare and good opportunity."

Eve Carly: "Don't you think this is strange?"

Ewald Cherry: "What could be wrong?"

Eve Carly: "Let's put it this way, what would you think when a leader in a field suddenly buys enlightenment books one day?"

Ewald Cherry: "So you are struggling with this matter? I can only say that you have seen too little, too young and too simple.

In fact, leaders in the field of science not only buy this kind of enlightenment books, but also often buy nearly one million US dollars in one purchase...

...Do you know my father?"

Eve Carly: "Now that you know your father is the distinguished school director, how many times are you going to mention it?"

Ewald Cherry: "The school director is just an identity that my father disdains to mention. My father is a Ph.D. in computer science. He obtained his Ph.D. at the age of 31. Although he obtained a Ph.D. in computer science at this age,

A degree does not constitute genius.

But you have to know how many PhDs they had in computer science at that time.

In short, this degree was far more valuable at that time than today's PhD in computer science. Later, my father held many important positions in scientific research positions for a long time. Although such a person is not considered a top expert in the scientific field,

But it should also be what you call the best.

However, such an outstanding person, when I was a child, I would buy those enlightenment books published by Councilor Herlus Caton almost every year, which were nonsense and had obvious logical errors. And almost every time, he would buy nearly a hundred books at once.

Ten thousand dollars, and he didn’t even read these books after buying them...

When I was a kid, I couldn't understand why my father bought these crappy books that he didn't even read.

Later I learned that my father did not invest in these reading materials, but in the people who wrote the books behind them.

For the same reason, LIN HUI invests heavily in an algorithm that you think is worthless.

It's very possible that what he cares about is not the "A New Method for Text Judgment, Screening and Comparison" algorithm patent itself, but what he cares about is you who got the patent...

After all, it is easy to know from public information on the Internet that you are the main person in charge of the extractive summary algorithm at the MIT NLP Research Center.

There is an old Chinese proverb: If someone throws away a peach, throw it back with a pear.

I think that since LIN HUI has extended an olive branch to you in terms of patent transactions, you can definitely try to make a deal.

You won't lose anything anyway.

Seven hundred thousand dollars is the next best thing, and this is probably the beginning of your cooperation.

Maybe you can go to China and meet LIN HUI in person before making a decision.

This is why I advocate that you go to China with us.
To be continued...