Interesting IP business model found in China, but probably not work in Japan

During a business trip to Shenzhen, we had a chance to talk with a Chinese company Andun which provides an intellectual property protection platform against counterfeit products. Andun has been building a network of lawyers to investigate infringing products and stop infringement activities for its customers. An interesting point of the business model is that […]

Japan’s population declines for the seventh consecutive year

On April 13 2018, the Japanese government published the estimated population in Japan.  The total population is 126.76 million, as of October 1 2017. It decreases 227 thousand (0.18%) from the previous year, and decreases for the seventh consecutive year. The chart shows the number of increase-decrease in population (bar chart) and the increase-decrease rate […]

Plans a business trip to China

I will make a business trip to Shenzhen, China next week to attend an IP-related event called IPBC (Intellectual Property Business Congress) and also to have several meetings with Chinese firms to discuss potential businesses. As a matter of fact, every time I visit China, especially Beijing, I’m worried about air pollution while checking a […]

What’s the difference between character licensing and technology licensing?

I attended a trading show specializing in character and brand licensing, Licensing Japan, which was held in Tokyo on April 4th to 6th 2018. Japanese people of all ages love characters of TV animations, movies, games and the like. It’s said that some people seek healing through such characters. The market size of Japanese domestic character goods […]

Local government provides strong support for patent licensing between large companies and SMEs

After having posted the article regarding the intellectual property business matching model, we received inquiries on the model. So, we would like to explain it in a little more detail here, based on the material we received from a local government. It’s called “Kawasaki model” in Japan, because Kawasaki-City started a project under this model […]

Baidu document-sharing site discloses corporate confidential documents

It is reported that Japanese companies’ internal documents marked “CONFIDENTIAL” are posted on Baidu document-sharing site. 186 companies’ confidential documents which includes a product diagram have been reportedly posted on this site between June 2017 and February 2018. Japanese companies today carefully review and select their technologies to be filed patent applications, considering cost and […]

Who solves last mile problem in Japan?

Japanese home-delivery service companies are faced with challenges. In a sense, e-commerce players are the same. Transaction volume has increased due to expansion of e-commerce such as Amazon, but it is difficult for home-delivery service companies to generate a good profit. The requirements of nationwide delivery, same-day or next-day delivery, and quantity discount, and also […]

The intellectual property business matching model attracts attention in Japan

On February 7 2018, Fuji Xerox announced that it will roll out the patent licensing business to SMEs. In Japan, a business model for large companies to license their unused patents to SMEs to help such SMEs develop new products or create new business is getting a lot attention lately. Fuji Xerox has been participating […]

3 tips for efficiently generating ideas likely to be adopted by customers

We are working with researchers, engineers and technology consultants to develop new solutions and applications for customers.  We try to generate great ideas that the customers get interested in adopting or at least trying to use them.  There are a variety of techniques widely introduced for generating ideas, such as Brainstorming, SCAMPER, Reverse thinking etc. […]