JURISDICTION REPORT: JAPAN
USING IP TO REVITALISE JAPAN Ryo Maruyama
Kyosei International Patent Office
More than two months aſter the Great Tohoku Earthquake of March 11, public and/or private volunteer activities have gathered steam and, thanks to those helpers, a number of people in the Tohoku region have started reconstruction efforts.
However, because of rumours and fear of atmospheric radiation from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, virtually every business field has been adversely affected by the disaster. For example, farmers in Fukushima and Ibaraki Prefectures cannot get their fruits and vegetables, which used to be recognised for their high quality, into markets. And even when the farmers do succeed, Japanese people do not buy them, because they have come from areas near the nuclear plant, and foreigners do not buy the products because they are labelled ‘grown in Japan’.
Te same problems are being experienced in industrial fields. Many government jurisdictions in Japan are requesting that the radiation level on each industrial product be checked. Tis situation has led to confusion in Japanese industries in general and to a lack of radiation-measuring instruments in Japan. Tourism-related industries also have taken a huge hit, in part because many Japanese will not visit the northern and eastern areas of Japan, and foreigners are reluctant to visit Japan in general. As a result, a number of important international sports competitions and international conferences have been cancelled. In general, many Japanese products are now regarded as undesirable, and we are finding it difficult to invite foreigners to Japan.
Jonathan Swiſt said that: “Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.” His words give us a great hint as to how to find a solution for Japan’s current problematic situation: that is, using IP to stimulate a revitalisation of the country. Ideas, including technological ones, are invisible. However, the results of ideas, when applied in a sound manner, are obvious and reliable. Te Japanese people should spread their world-leading technologies all over the world. Te Japanese people lost a lot of visible property due to the recent earthquake and subsequent tsunami, aſtershocks and other earthquakes. However, speaking as a former civil engineering technician, I think that this disaster can enable Japan to gain the world’s trust in its ‘quake-resistant engineering’. Most of the buildings in the earthquake area were not severely damaged, and many buildings in northeastern Japan experienced only minimal damage. Some 90 percent of the deaths were caused by the tsunami, not by the collapse of buildings. Te Japanese government should encourage the export of its earthquake-resistant technology to the world.
To do that, however, it is necessary to adopt some special measures, some of which already have been manifesting in the IP field in Japan in recent years:
www.worldipreview.com
1. Promote the continuing progress of open innovation, which is increasingly necessary to create even just one product. For example, to produce just one DVD, some 2,000 patents are necessary.
2. Enrich rights holders’ portfolios of IP rights.
3. Further increase co-operative research among private companies, universities and other organisations, which has doubled in the past five years.
4. Promote recognition of the increasing importance of licensing agreements that allow various parties to use each other’s patents.
5. Facilitate increased co-operative R&D.
6. Enhance the speed of innovation of new products and the shortening of product development cycles. 7. Speed up the patent examination and dispute settlement processes.
8. Increase the use of IP rights of small and medium-size enterprises, which now account for about 10 percent of the total applications in Japan, and those of academic institutions, so as to promote innovation.
9. Increase the acquisition of foreign patents, because at present the percentage of Japanese patents for which corresponding foreign patents are sought is much lower—23 percent in Japan—than in the US (51 percent) and the EU (63 percent). Aid SMEs and universities in acquiring patents abroad.
Te Japanese government is discussing a pending bill to amend the Patent Law so as to achieve the following purposes, which I believe will help promote the revitalisation of Japan by utilising IP rights and related rights:
1. To strengthen the protection of licensing agreements that enable parties to use others’ technology.
2. To effectively protect the results of co-operative R&D by SMEs and universities.
3. To reduce the burden on SMEs to promote their R&D, in part by improving the ease and convenience for them to use the patent system
4. To promptly and effectively resolve IP litigation. Tese matters will be dealt with soon.
Ryo Maruyama is a patent attorney and vice president of Kyosei International Patent Office. He can be contacted at:
kyosei@tkc.att.ne.jp
World Intellectual Property Review May/June 2011 59
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84