Research and Development, Patents and Licenses, etc.
Research and Development
Building a reliable, scalable and secure technology infrastructure is crucial to our ability to support our live lecture broadcasts, online TTS, 61it.cn and the various services that we provide to our students. We manage our lecture delivery system, TTS and 61it.cn using a combination of commercially available software, hardware systems and proprietary technology. Since 2006, we have established a powerful online platform that enables thousands of students to simultaneously log onto our TTS and participate in activities online.
Our research and development expenses primarily consist of a portion of the personnel costs of our instructors as determined based on the amount of time that they devote to research and development-related activities, as well as the personnel costs of our software engineers. Our research and development expenses were RMB11.0 million, and RMB6.9 million (US$1.0 million) for the six months ended June 30, 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Intellectual Property
Our trademarks, copyrights, domain names, trade secrets and other intellectual property rights distinguish our courses and services from those of our competitors and contribute to our ability to compete in our target markets. We rely on a combination of copyright and trademark law, trade secret protection and confidentiality agreements with senior executive officers and most other employees, to protect our intellectual property rights. In addition, we require certain of our senior executive officers and other employees to enter into agreements with us under which they acknowledge that all inventions, utility models, designs, know-how, copyrights and other forms of intellectual property made by them within the scope of their employment with us, pursuant to job assignments or using our materials and technology, or during the one year after their employment that relates to their employment with us, are our property and they should assign the same to us if we so require. We also regularly monitor any infringement or misappropriation of our intellectual property rights.
As of June 30, 2024, we had registered 34 domain names relating to our continuing operations, including our www.tctm.cn, www.it61.cn and www.61it.cn websites, with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers and China Internet Network Information Center and held 3 software copyrights and 116 trademarks related to our continuing operations.
Trend Information
Other than as disclosed elsewhere in this Management’s Discussion and Analysis, we are not aware of any trends, uncertainties, demands, commitments or events for the period beginning on January 1, 2024 and ending on the date of this Management’s Discussion and Analysis that are reasonably likely to have a material effect on our net revenues, income, profitability, liquidity or capital resources, or that would cause the disclosed financial information to be not necessarily indicative of future operating results or financial conditions.
Critical Accounting Estimates
We prepare our consolidated financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP, which requires us to make judgments, estimates and assumptions that affect (i) the reported amounts of our assets and liabilities; (ii) the disclosure of our contingent assets and liabilities at the end of each reporting period; and (iii) the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during each reporting period. We continually evaluate these judgments, estimates and assumptions based on our own historical experience, knowledge and assessment of current business and other conditions and our expectations regarding the future based on available information, which together form our basis for making judgments about matters that are not readily apparent from other sources. Since the use of estimates is an integral component of the financial reporting process, our actual results could differ from those estimates. Some of our accounting policies require a higher degree of judgment than others in their application.
When reading our consolidated financial statements, you should consider our selection of critical accounting policies, the judgment and other uncertainties affecting the application of such policies and the sensitivity of reported results to changes in conditions and assumptions. Our critical accounting policies and practices include the following: (i) use of estimates; (ii) discontinued operations; (iii) revenue recognition; and (iv) recently issued accounting standards. See “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies” under Note 2 to our unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements included in our Report of Foreign Private Issuer on Form 6-K filed with the SEC on December 27, 2024, for the disclosure of these accounting policies. We believe the following accounting estimates involve the most significant judgments used in the preparation of our financial statements.