I had many opportunities to talk with intellectual property service providers during my two weeks trip to Seattle. Some of these firms devise a way to improve price competitiveness. Generally, in our globalized world, jobs tend to move to cheaper-labor countries or regions. The IP industry seems to be no exception. As an example, there is an Indian firm that undertakes patent prosecution work for the US patent applications. This firm provides  (i) a patent application drafting service and (ii) a prosecution service package which covers from patent application filing to registration with reasonable fixed fee for their clients who seek to file patent applications to the US. This firm […]

Japan may become a better option as a place to solve international disputes even for foreign companies. It is reported that the Japanese government is considering legal revision to make it easier for foreign lawyers to work in Japan, and may introduce the bill to the extraordinary Diet session this year. Specifically, the legal revision is reportedly being considered in the following two aspects. Shortens the requirement of experience of having performed professional duties to two years (which includes one year of experience in other countries) from three years (which includes two years of experience in other countries). Makes it possible to establish a joint law firm by Japanese lawyers […]

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 Andun does not charge for such activities to the customers. Settlement money and compensation for damage are its revenue source for Andun and its allied lawyers. The customers can not only remove infringing products from the marketplace at no cost, but also receive a part of the damages. Therefore, this business model is realized at […]

A global automotive company is looking for new services or application for connected car. So, we are looking for persons who are willing to develop new ideas or innovations (inventions) for the automotive company via an open-innovation platform. In this project, we are working with Xinova which provides the open-innovation platform with inventor network worldwide.  We can give you documents for detailed information which includes problem definition, examples of existing relevant technologies, and requirements for the ideas to be proposed. And if you develop such good ideas that the company selects for its use, you will be able to receive monetary rewards.  If you have interest in such open innovation activities, […]

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 (line chart). The population aged 65 and over is 35.152 million (increase 561 thousand from the previous year) and its proportion sets new record high of 27.7%. The number of foreigners resident in Japan is on the rise, but the population shrink cannot be stopped. The falling birth rate and the aging population is creating […]

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 website which shows air quality, since I have asthma. Further concern is internet access environment. In China, I cannot use many of tools I use every day, such as google, skype, facebook, twitter. It’s very inconvenient, or rather I feel it limits my ability. Nevertheless, we expand opportunities to visit China. Because we see increased […]

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 is around 1.6 trillion JPY (approximately 16 billion dollars). In the Japanese market, Japan-origin characters such as pikachu and precure are strong, as expected, but recently the ratio of overseas characters is getting bigger. In character licensing, in many cases, a company who wish to develop its products using a particular character applies for a […]

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 as a pioneer in 2007 to revitalize local industry while involving large companies successfully, and attracted attention from other local governments. The basic concept of this model is patented technology transfer from large companies to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It could be a win-win solution for both large companies and SMEs. Large companies desire […]

Satoshi Watanabe of WATANABE Research & Consulting posted several articles in Japan Intellectual Property News regarding the Japanese government’s efforts for the resolution of disputes involving standard essential patents (SEP). His comments are introduced in IAM magazine and Blog that is run by Globe Business Media Group, a publisher of a unique magazine focusing on intellectual property business. For your information, the Japanese government recently introduced an SEP licensing negotiation guide and a non-binding advisory opinion service on standard essentiality. Furthermore, the government is planning to create an International Arbitration Center in Tokyo (IACT) to solve the SEP-related disputes.

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 risk of unnecessary technology disclosure, and therefore reduce patent application filing. At the same time, they are attracted to trade secret protection and its related services such as  timestamp service which is used to prove existence of a particular electrical data at a specific date. Once trade secret or know-how is leaked to the outside, […]