Volume 6 Chapter 63 - Expired Patents
Just last week, Great Magician Ferguson came to the Stantine Duchy on behalf of the Magicians Guild and met Xu Yi.
This time, Great Magician Ferguson brought the Magicians Guild’s final decision.
According to the Magicians Guild headquarter’s council, they decided that they would support the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s idea of letting low grade magicians gain magic machine foundational knowledge.
The Magicians Guild headquarters stated that in the name of the Magicians Guild of the Sines Continent, all magicians would formally recognize the existence of the magic machine industry.
After receiving the official approval of the Magicians Guild headquarters, it meant that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s magic machine industry was officially recognized by the Magicians Guild, being clearly divided from all the other industries on the continent.
The magicians of the continent did look down on the merchants, but when it came to making a living, they had to interact with the merchants.
Now that the Magicians Guild headquarters had specially raised the magic machine industry and recognized it, it gave the magicians another reason to officially step into the magic machine industry.
For Xu Yi, this was already enough.
When the Frestech Chamber of Commerce met problems recruiting magicians, it was because of the problem of reputation.
For those High Grade Magicians, joining a company would be considered lowering their status. To enter a company and just hold the position of researcher was even harder to accept.
The Frestech Chamber of Commerce being able to recruit so many magicians now, other than giving many good benefits, the most important reason was the advertisement from Arch Magus Camilla.
However, now that the magic machine industry was officially recognized by the Magicians Guild and the Magicians Guild listed the Frestech Chamber of Commerce as one of their cooperating companies, there was no longer a mental barrier for magicians to join the magic machine industry.
As for the magic machine industry academy the Frestech Chamber of Commerce opened, it was a blessing for low grade magicians.
Because according to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, they didn’t need to pay school fees to enrol and after graduating, there was a big chance of joining the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and getting a good job.
For most of these magicians that had bad financial situations who not only could barely support their magic research, this was like a pie that fell from the sky.
And for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, the Magicians Guild’s support not only allowed them to recruit even more magicians, it also allowed their magic machine industry academy to recruit even more talented people. This was beneficial for both the current and future Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
So in the beginning, his talks with Great Magician Ferguson were good. Xu Yi also seized this chance to make a new proposal to Great Magician Ferguson.
Xu Yi hoped that the Magicians Guild headquarters would allow the Frestech Chamber of Commerce to be the title sponsors of the Lampuri Kingdom’s yearly Magicians Guild examination. The Frestech Chamber of Commerce could even pay a sponsor fee of a hundred thousand gold coins a year to the Lampuri Kingdom’s Magicians Guild.
Although Great Magician Ferguson was confused by the terms Xu Yi proposed, he easily understood what it meant with Xu Yi’s explanation.
To Great Magician Ferguson, this was without a doubt a good thing.
Because the Magicians Guilds of the various countries had no method of income. The funds that they had were special funds allocated from the Magicians Guild and their respective countries.
The Lampuri Kingdom had been a rather weak country and didn’t have much money, so the Lampuri Kingdom’s Magicians Guild always had little funding.
According to what Great Magician Ferguson could remember from the annual report from the Lampuri Kingdom’s Magicians Guild, they stated that they had very little funds because the funds allocated from the Lampuri Kingdom each year was only fifty thousand gold coins.
Even if the Magicians Guild gave them another thirty thousand gold coins a year, the Lampuri Kingdom’s Magicians Guild’s funding each year was only around eighty thousand gold coins.
With this little funding, it was even hard to maintain the basic functions of the Lampuri Kingdom’s Magicians Guild. Not to mention organizing the various events, which made it much harder for them.
Now that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was willing to support the Lampuri Kingdom’s Magicians Guild with one hundred thousand gold coins a year, this would greatly improve their financial situation, which was without a doubt a good thing.
But Great Magician Ferguson didn’t immediately agree.
First, this was related to the Lampuri Kingdom’s Magicians Guild, so he couldn’t decide this alone. Second, a company being the “title sponsor” of a country’s Magicians Guild examination, this really was too novel of a term. Of course it had to be properly discussed before it could be passed.
Of course, Great Magician Ferguson praised Xu Yi’s suggestion. He called Xu Yi a chairman who really cared about magicians and was very willing to consider his fellow magicians. The Magicians Guild headquarters deciding to list the Frestech Chamber of Commerce as a cooperating company really was a good choice…..
However, after Xu Yi raised this suggestion, the atmosphere suddenly changed.
The reason was because of the request Great Magician Ferguson brought on behalf of the Magicians Guild headquarters.
Last time, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had reached a deal with the Magicians Guild headquarters. The Frestech Chamber of Commerce would give them a piece of technology related to the magic machine industry each year, which would be exchanged for the support of the Magicians Guild.
This wasn’t considered much since Xu Yi was clear that the Magicians Guild also wanted to earn money from the magic machine industry which wasn’t surprising.
But this time, Xu Yi was surprised and even greatly angered by the request Great Magician Ferguson raised on behalf of the Magicians Guild headquarters.
The Magicians Guild headquarters stated that because the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s patents with the Magicians Guild had changed, they needed to review them again before certifying them.
In order to be strictly fair, the Magicians Guild was asking the Frestech Chamber of Commerce to had over all the related material with this patent.
When Great Magician Ferguson requested this, his expression was calm and his tone was natural, like this was perfectly justified.
But Xu Yi was so angry that he almost cursed at him.
Can you be even more shameless!
Handing over all the materials related to this patent?
Isn’t this handing over all the technologies related to this patent!
Great Magician Ferguson’s casual words had a very heavy meaning.
Xu Yi proposing the patents to the Magicians Guild headquarters through the Lampuri Kingdom’s Magicians Guild was to imitate patent laws from earth, allowing the Frestech Chamber of Commerce turn these patents into a bit of protection.
But he never thought that the Magicians Guild would use it for corruption!
If Xu Yi didn’t have a calm personality and adding in the fact that he had been the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s chairman for many years, he wouldn’t have been as calm and would have angrily cursed out Great Magician Ferguson and the Magicians Guild headquarters that he represented.
But Great Magician Ferguson who could sense Xu Yi’s mood only coldly said a few words.
“If the Frestech Chamber of Commerce can’t hand over the complete material, these patents won’t be able to pass our headquarters’ verification and will become expired, no longer being protected by the headquarters. Chairman Xu, please consider the consequences.”
Xu Yi resisted the urge to charge forward and told Great Magician Ferguson that the company would need some time to consider this before ending the meeting between them.
However, it had been a week since the meeting and Xu Yi didn’t hold a meeting with the company.
Because to him, there was nothing to discuss at all, he definitely wouldn’t agree to this.
But the consequences of denying this was something Great Magician Ferguson had said very clearly.
The Magicians Guild headquarters not protecting these patents anymore meant that anyone could use the designs of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce without any penalties.
Xu Yi was certain that the ones who wanted to do this was the Magicians Guild headquarters.
So Xu Yi was faced with a very serious problem.
If he lost the protection of the Magicians Guild, it meant that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s research could be used by any other magicians.
However, in the designs that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce used, although the magic played a very important role, the grade of the magic was very low and rarely used high grade magic.
If a single High Grade Magician focused on studying it, it wasn’t impossible for them to break through the secrets of the Magic Array used by the magic machines.
Adding in the fact that the design of these magic machines weren’t that complicated, it wasn’t that hard to copy it. So Xu Yi was certain that as long as the Magicians Guild headquarters announced that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s patents expired, there would be many knockoffs that would appear.
Although Xu Yi believed that it was not something that could be easily counterfeited, with many counterfeit products, the new, precise, and easy to use image that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s magic machines had worked so hard to establish would be ruined.
The most important thing was that losing the protection of the patent would make the industry more chaotic.
Losing law and order would be very bad for the development of the magic machine industry.
This was why Xu Yi was worried about the Magicians Guild headquarters’ request.
As for how to solve it…..It wasn’t as if Xu Yi didn’t have a solution, but there was a hidden danger to that method that made him unable to make a decision.
However, after receiving that letter from Seveni and thinking of how the Lampuri Kingdom and the Rudson Kingdom had already stepped into the magic machine industry. Then how if nothing unexpected happened, the Candra Empire and the Marlow Empire would also enter the magic machine industry, Xu Yi felt that he couldn’t hesitate any longer.
After thinking about it, Xu Yi stood up and headed to Arch Magus Camilla’s personal lab.