Simon Chu made a crucial invention in his early days. He started to work in QC department and saw many plates made during the summer period went bad (poor shelf life) and came back to factory almost killing the company. Seeing this is due to the moisture effect he experimented with many chemicals and came up with so called "V" coating. Early successful Polychrome additive plates all had his "V" coating. In late 60's and early 70's, 3M was dominating the market and used "subtractive" technology which did not need smelly lacquer to be applied to strengthen image area. Seeing the need for such "subtractive" system, he had Gene Golda mix diazao resin and V coating compound and obtained gooey dark substance which he later named Fotomer. This Fotomer was the key ingredient for all the subsequent negative working subtractive coating used by Polychrome and its licensee; Fuji and China's 2FF. The single coating of Fotomer had a distinct advantage over 3M's double layer system offering better resolution and easy development. Fotomer based subtractive plate technology was especially important in US market where over 95% of the plate used were negative working type and this offered superior product over 3M. and it helped make Polychrome a dominant Plate supplier in US market.