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 an agent company CREEK & RIVER to ask dispatch of the creators. Here is a press release (in Japanese) for this project, published by CREEK & RIVER. In this scheme, the key is whether or not the creators can propose specific products that SMEs are most interested in implementing such patented technologies. Also, extra care […]

Here are some useful patent research & analysis methods to identify salable or licensable patents, responding to previous article. 1. Technology trend research  This research is for reviewing whether or not a subject patent is likely to be used, from the viewpoint of technology trends. For a technology that is not used in the market, a patent for that technology has less opportunity to be sold or licensed. 2. Market research This is for researching current and future market size and trends of products or services related to a subject patent. Some investment is required to enter a new business or developing a new technologies. If the expected return does […]

“Patent utilization” has been a buzz word in Japanese IP industry. There seems to be an increasing number of companies thinking that they should make effective use of patents that haven’t been used by themselves; i.e. monetize such patents by selling or licensing them to others. Actually, a client of ours has asked me what salable or licensable patents are like. First of all, you may need to know when a patent transaction occurs. One is when a company has to use a patent. In other words, it is the case that the company possibly infringes someone’s patent. We may be able to call this case an assertion-based transaction, since […]

Japan starts to study a blockchain system for contents management. The government is aiming to support Japanese contents business (e.g. game, character) by providing a system which realizes smooth copyrights handling by using smart contract and other functions based on blockchain technology. The Japanese government is reportedly planning to proceed to the validation phase in 2019. In addition to this government project, Sony seems considering using blockchain technology for Digital Rights Management (DRM). Reportedly, Sony has filed a patent application, which was published by USPTO on April 26 2018, for using blockchain technology to manage ownership of purchased games for PlayStation 4. Blockchain technology-based IP platform is becoming hot. So […]

On June 19 2018, a Japanese e-commerce company Mercari, Inc. goes public on the Mathers market. It operates the “Mercari” marketplace app and is the first in Japan to reach “unicorn” status. Therefore, stock market players expect that it brings about positive impact on the market. In the Mercari marketplace, users can sell unnecessary possessions and turn them into money. Recently, more people willingly throw away unnecessary possessions with the current danshari boom. In the meantime, even if it is unnecessary for you, there is someone who wants it. So, many people use this app to sell their unnecessary possessions (monetization), rather than just throwing them away. Similar action has […]