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 published the report on June 14 2019. JFTC had responses from 15,875 manufacturers, and received reports of 726 incidents. The reported incidents include: Forcing the disclosure of know-how, to manufacture in-house or make other cheaper companies manufacture the product using such know-how. Doing joint research only by name, in which only a subcontracting company works […]

2018年にノーベル生理学・医学賞を受賞した日本人科学者の本庶佑氏が、日本の製薬会社である小野薬品工業と特許使用料をめぐって争っています。背景 報道によれば、2006年に、本庶氏と小野薬品工業は、がん治療薬「オプジーボ」（一般名：ニボルマブ）に応用されたPD-1に関する特許のライセンス契約を締結しました。しかし、オプジーボの開発が進んでいた2011年に、本庶氏がロイヤリティの引き上げを要求しましたが、交渉は期待したようには進みませんでした。そこで、本庶氏は、2019年4月10日に、世間の支持を得るために、契約の背景や概要を公表するという手段に出ました。[…]

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, […]

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.  Here are several tips for new participants in our invention program to heighten the likelihood of adoption of your ideas by customers, which you should consider before and after you generate ideas, rather than idea generation techniques themselves. 1. Choose a problem worthy of contemplation What is a problem you try to solve?  Before you […]

We are delighted to announce the partnership with Xinova which provides an open innovation platform with a global inventor network. We will assist Xinova to find great talent who has potential for invention and assist them to develop new solutions to solve a variety of problems faced by its customers and also develop new applications based on existing technologies owned by the customers. The inventors who develop such good solutions or applications that the customers select or the like will be able to receive monetary rewards. If you have an interest in joining the invention program, please don’t hesitate to contact us.