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 […]

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, […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]