Scholar's Advanced Technological System

Chapter 279: US$400 Million

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

December came in the blink of an eye. The 12 days long MRS Conference finally came to an end.

Lu Zhou was invited by the organizer to present the Best Poster Award.

Since this conference had 63 topics, and topics could not be compared fairly, so there were 63 awards.

Normally speaking, the young scholars were involved in the poster presentation stage, and well-known scholars were responsible for giving out the awards.

Lu Zhou was responsible for giving out the award for best poster in photovoltaic materials and photovoltaic devices. The winners were master’s student Wang Chen from Cai University, and his supervisor Xu Lijun.

Although Cai University was not that famous, its materials science department was top-notch, especially in the field of photovoltaic materials.

Under the guidance of Professor Xu, Wang Chen used a mixed continuous deposition method to synthesize a film of CH3NH3PbCl3 with good crystallinity and obtained a coplanar insert type CH3NH3PbCl3 film visible light blind ultraviolet detector.

Although this research result was not enough for an oral report, it was undoubtedly the best posters among young scholars.

As such, her work won the favor of the judges and stood out from many other posters.

On the podium, Professor Xu Lijun shook Lu Zhou’s hands.

The old professor then said with a smile, “Congratulations! After this MRS Autumn Conference, you’re the leading person in the field of computational materials science!”

“No way,” said Lu Zhou as he shook the old professor’s hand. He then smiled and said, “I’m only a mathematics professor, I still need more insight to carry forward the computational materials science field and make achievements.”

The two released their hands after the brief exchange.

Lu Zhou then turned around and took the award certificate and souvenir from the conference staff. He then handed it to the winner Wang Chen and shook hands with her.

The female master’s student excitedly shook Lu Zhou’s hands and said, “God Lu, do you really not plan on teaching a course in computational materials science at Princeton?”

Lu Zhou was stunned.

Why do I think she...

Looks familiar?

Lu Zhou carefully looked at her. He finally remembered that he met her outside the report hall.

However, he did not change his answer.

“Maybe in the future, but there are no plans for this in the short term.”

The girl said, “Then... I’ll apply to MIT.”

Lu Zhou said with an encouraging tone, “Yes, do it!”

Master’s girl: “...”

After the award ceremony, the conference finally came to an end.

Lu Zhou ended his two weeks long business trip and returned to Princeton campus.

At the same time, good news came from the AM office.

The company in the Cayman Islands had been successfully registered. It was named “Star Sky Technology Co. Ltd” as per Lu Zhou’s requests. Its main business of operation was intellectual property services and overseas investment, and the logo was three-interlaced Mobius rings.

Like this, Lu Zhou finally started his multinational company...

This company was somewhat different than the others. It only had US$100,000 in the bank account and did not even have an office. Lu Zhou was still in the process of hiring patent management staff. The only business partner they had was an accounting firm.

However, this situation ended in the second week of the MRS Conference.

Soon, Star Sky Technology quickly welcomed its first customer.

It was a customer worth $400 million USD.

“I did not expect you to be so fast. I thought it would have to be after Christmas,” said Lu Zhou. He was at a hotel in Philadelphia. As he read the contract handed over by Grynberg, he asked, “Only one copy?”

Grynberg said, “Christmas gifts have to be prepared before Christmas. Plus, the one in your hands is only a draft contract. I sent the electronic file to your email. I’m guessing you won’t sign it without looking at it, so I only printed one copy.”

Of course, no one would be that dumb.

Lu Zhou read the contract in its entirety. He then handed it over to the AM lawyer sitting next to him.

Reading this stuff was a waste of time, so it was better to give it to the experts. Since the lawyer from Umicore was also here, the two lawyers could discuss among themselves.

This was the final step of the patent authorization, so Grynberg was not in a hurry. However sitting here was boring, so he started to chat with Lu Zhou about the future of lithium batteries.

Since the problem of lithium dendrites was solved, industries such as mobile phones and electric vehicles had quickly started R&D on new products. Other major battery manufacturers were also accelerating their lithium battery research.

Even if they did not create lithium-sulfur batteries, and ended up with Li-MoS2 batteries, it could still change the entire industry and increased the battery density by several folds.

The company NEC bought the patent rights to Li-MoS2 batteries at a high price years ago, but it had since expired. Almost all other major battery companies were ready to jump on the bandwagon.

In a huge market like this, it was crucial for Umicore to obtain a patent license as soon as possible.

This was why Umicore was in a hurry.

They hated the idea of being sneaky and did not play any tricks on the contract.

The AM lawyers took all day to inspect the contract. After some arguments, the lawyers at Umicore confirmed their revision of the contract.

Although Lu Zhou knew he probably did not understand anything, he still read the final contract from beginning to end. He then took the pen and signed his name.

From now on, Umicore would receive a four-year exclusive license for the PDMS film technology outside of China as well as a secondary patent authorization from Star Sky Technology.

Star Sky Technology would no longer license this patent to third parties, and half of the proceeds from this technology would go toward Star Sky Technology.

As for what Umicore would do to their competitors with their excellent team of lawyers, it was none of Lu Zhou’s business.

The reason why he signed the complete authorization contract with Umicore was that he did not want to spend time to handle negotiations and lawsuits from other companies.

If someone used his patent without authorization, Umicore would be angrier than him. Umicore would undoubtedly go after any competitor that infringed on their IP rights.

In addition, Lu Zhou could still receive half of the settlement from the lawsuit.

Grynberg looked at the two identical sets of contracts on the table. He finally had a smile on his face.

With the help of this contract, Umicore would have a significant advantage in the lithium battery industry.

For him personally, this was an excellent performance.

Grynberg put away the contract that belonged to him and reached out to shake Lu Zhou’s hand.

“Happy cooperation.”

Lu Zhou held Grynberg’s hand and smiled.

“Happy cooperation!”

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