IPwe announced on March 9, 2022 that nChain joined the Blockchain Smart Pool as the first founder.  The Smart Pool is a new type of patent pool that IPwe developed. A group of key innovation leaders (“Founders”) collectively offer a group of their patents relating to leading and emerging technologies for license to other companies […]

On May 20 2021, it was reported that FAST RETAILING CO., LTD., which operates UNIQLO, lost a patent case against an IT company Asterisk Inc. Asterisk owns a patent (JP6469758) for technology of reading data from RFID tags attached to the products, which is used in self-checkout machines. Then, they required Fast Retailing to pay license fees for […]

Are you thinking you can’t afford to hold intellectual properties (IP) because of the limited budget? I know some companies want to focus on generating revenues before acquiring IP such as patents and trademarks. However, I would like to show you some study findings here today.  Study in Europe The European Patent Office (EPO) and […]

It was reported that the Japanese government has begun to consider a system that would allow companies to pledge intangible assets such as technologies and customer base as collateral in one fell swoop. Nikkei: 中小の無形資産を一括で担保に　金融庁、融資改革で支援 In Japan, it has been pointed out that bank loans, especially to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), focus on real estate […]

In the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, we have been waiting eagerly for development of therapeutic drugs and vaccines. However, some people are afraid that patents become an obstacle to development of such therapeutic methods. So, there is a movement to pledge or declare not to enforce  patents and other intellectual property rights for solutions for coronavirus; […]

Japanese large companies have been stealing SMEs’ intellectual property. This issue was brought up in a working group discussing the improvement of business conditions for SMEs or subcontracting companies, as reported in our previous article. Then, Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) conducted surveys on the handling intellectual property in the transactions in manufacturing industry, and […]

The previous article on possible revision of IP litigation system covered different positions taken by large companies and SMEs; – i.e SMEs asking for improvement of the status of patent holders and large companies wanting the maintenance of  the status quo. Now another confrontation between them has been obtaining attention. According to the document distributed […]

There may be an increase in cases where foreign companies acquire Japanese SMEs. Japan is facing the issue of business succession of SMEs. Many SMEs have problems of aging managers and undecided successor. The government believes that there is a potential that approximately 6.5 million jobs and GDP of JPY 22 trillion (USD 200 billion) […]

A Japanese local government Kawasaki-city, which plays an active role in patent licensing between large companies and SMEs as presented here, has set out on a new endeavor. Kawasaki-city invites creators to an IP business matching event to ask them to propose applications of patented technologies of participant large companies. For this, Kawasaki-city works with […]

Recently, alternative lending has been attracting attention in Japan. Alternative lending is a business loan option that falls outside of a traditional bank loan. For example, a Japanese electronic commerce and Internet company Rakuten gives a loan to its online shopping site owners using daily accounting data, and an accounting software company Yayoi also provides […]