This is my fourth of eight blogs on Factory tours of the New
Taipei City area. Today we visited the
Jewelry Museum of W & W Company Inc., (hereafter I will refer to this
company as just W & W). Their headquarters is
located in Linkou Industrial Park, which is centrally located between the
TaoYuan International Airport and the center of Taipei City.
On our way to the factory tour of W & W Company Inc., I did not know what to expect. I thought we would see a factory where they make inexpensive jewelry for possibly the low end consumer markets. Boy was I in for a surprise. I am an engineer by education, and spent many years in capital equipment, high tech companies. Needless to say, I am fascinated about all types of equipment. when I realized W & W Company Equipment was a jewelery making equipment company, I was very excited about this tour.
Upon our
arrival, we were cordially met by Mr. Raymond Wu, his wife Sarah Lin and our
tour guide.
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| Sarah Lin and Raymond Wu during the tour of W & W Co. Inc. |
W & W started in 1970 making general jewelry making
tools and equipment. In the early years,
their products were primarily hand tools for manually making jewelry, and they
had a wonderful, ALL white, collage of many of these tools on the main lobby
wall.
The tour guide gave the tour
in Chinese, but I had Sarah, Raymond and others translated lots of important details. first stop on the tour is their collage wall of manual jewelry making tools, including many of W&W's early products.
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| Our Tour started here ........ |
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| Manual Tools used by jewelery makers ........ many of W & W's early products |
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| Our Tour guide talks about early days at W & W and Jewelry making tools |
Sarah was kind enough to join our tour and answer questions as
we went along. She actually went to
college in New York state, and her English is very good. Later, Raymond Wu also gave me a great deal
of one-on-one time to answer additional questions about his company, early history and its bright future.
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| Mr. Raymond Wu telling me about the company history |
Initially, Mr. Earl Weaver asked Mr. Kuang-I (Mickey) Wu to
join the firm. Together they built the
business and named the company W & W Co., Inc. (for Weaver & Wu). W & W designs, manufactures and
represents a wide range of jewelry manufacturing products. Today, their product line includes manual
and automated equipment that is used in all kinds of jewelry manufacturing
processes, such as grinding, plating, polishing, wax injection, mold casting, and
many company’s and of course many of the
world’s top jewelry designers around the globe.
In their main entrance, they have a huge structure engraved
with the names of many of these top world designers that they do business with
including: Cartier, De Beers, Tiffany & Company, Piaget, Bvlgari,
Boucheron, Enzo, Mont Blanc, Chopard, Chanel, Swarovski, Chaumel, Pappilon ,
Graff, Harry Winston, Christofle, and
many, many more.
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| Jewelry making process steps. W&W sells equipment for ALL process steps! |
For each process step along the tour, (and behind a long glass wall) are examples of
many of W & W Co., Inc.'s products, and examples of how the products are used.
During the tour, Mr. Mickey Wu, joined us for a short while
and introduced me to a couple of people from a German Equipment manufacturer
that is interested in collaborating with W&W on one products used by small
design houses.
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| Mr. Mickey Wu in meeting with guests |
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| Mr. Mickey Wu in meeting with guests |
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| (left to right) Raymond Wu, Mickey Wu and German Guests |
We spoke briefly about
technologies used in the design of such equipment including global patents used
in protecting these innovations. I was also told that W&W Company Inc., either holds several technology patents, or is considering filing patents in the future. I will
talk about patents at the end of this blog.
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| Sarah Lin discussing DIY Project and the Tools to be used. |
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| Some of the projects we could select for DIY |
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| The DIY projects we selected |
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| Sarah watching over our Tour Group, working hard to complete their DIY projects |
Near the end of the tour, they invited us to a DIY (Do It Yourself) project
where we could select a number of small gifts and actually hand paint and
assemble them. I selected a set of key
chains with charms for my project. That was a lot of fun for most all of us on
the tour. Last stop of the tour was the
W&W gift shop with many interesting items for sale including fine jewelry, gifts
and items for the entire family.
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| The Gift Shop Show Room - "First Class" displays |
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| (far left) Famous Chinese Blogger - Nina Cheng and others in gift shop with Sarah Lin (far right) |
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| Some of the non-jewelry products they sell in the Gift Shop |
This is a well-managed company and successful family owned
business. I believe W&W Co., Inc. will continue to
be one of leaders in their industry for many years to come.
By the way, for those people that know jewelry, precious and
semi-precious stones, W & W attends a number of the larger US shows every
year including Las Vegas, Nevada and Tucson, Arizona. So if you attend, check the list of
Exhibitors and stop by W & W Co., Inc. booth and introduce yourself.
For more information, you can contact this company as
follows:
W & W Company Inc.
No. 104, Sec. 1, Fenliao Road,
Linkou,
New Taipei City, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
Tel: +886 2 86014430
Website: http://950.com.tw/en/
My other New Taipei City Factory Tour Blog Article Links:
1. Taipei Factory Tours: Teng Feng Fishball Museum; African Cichlids, Salt Water Fish, and Big Game Sport Fishing
http://letssoarwitheagles.blogspot.tw/2012/11/taipei-factory-tours-teng-feng-fishball.html
2. Attention Candy & Sweets Lovers: Taiwan Nougat Museum
http://letssoarwitheagles.blogspot.tw/2012/11/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none_12.html
3. Taipei Factory Tours: Teng Feng Fishball Museum; African Cichlids, Salt Water Fish, and Big Game Sport Fishing
http://letssoarwitheagles.blogspot.tw/2012/11/taiwan-factory-tour-how-sweet-bakery.html
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PATENTS
Now about patents. In
my business career, I was involved in many high technology companies that
invented technology and embodied that technology in their products. To keep competitors from copying their
technology, and to protect their R&D engineering innovations or their
intellectual property (IP) acquisition investments they file patents in the US
and often many other global countries where their products are sold, or where
competitors might possibly infringe on their technology.
In the US, if you want to file a utility patent on an
innovation, the inventors document there technology and invention and use a
legal firm that either specializes in patents or has a department or staff of
patent attorneys. Most of these law
firms charge by the hour (from ~$250 to $500+ USD per hour) and based on the
complexity of the technology, the patent could cost anywhere from $6,000 to
$10,000 USD minimum and up to $30,000 or more just to file it in the United
States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Most US patent attorneys have at least one college degree in
an engineering or science field. They may
spend some time or almost no time actually practicing that technology before
they obtain their law degree as a patent attorney.
In Taiwan, there is a very novel patent firm known as IPPLUS
Patent Office LLP. Instead
of utilizing expensive patent attorneys to write patents and file them, they
have built up a strong group of technologists with BS, MS and Phd degrees from
Taiwan. Several of these technologists
have their Phd’s from famous universities such as Stanford University in
California, Leeds University in the UK, and from National Taiwan University in
Taipei. Almost all of their staff have
spent many years working in their respective fields prior to being a part of
the IPPLUS team of experts. With this
staff, they tell me they can write a better quality patent because they better
understand the latest technologies. They
also can write a quality patent in less time with the large dedicated team of
technologists, and their cost is significantly less than most all US patent law
firms. Their spokesperson for the CEO,
Mr. Roger Kang indicated they have filed more than 3,000 patents in
approximately 30 countries.
In today’s global market, it is becoming ever so important for
individuals and companies from start up’s to large corporations to protect
their innovation by building a strong patent portfolio and filing their patent
applications in every country they want to compete.
Good Luck IPPLUS Patent Office LLP.
For more information you can contact IPPLUS as follows:
IPPLUS Patent Office LLP
19F-4, No.1, Baosheng Rd.,
Yonghe City, Taipei County 234,
Taiwan
TEL: +886-2-8660-6660
FAX: +886-2-8660-6659
