抄録
In conventional medical fields in Japan, researchers have believed that it is sufficient to publish papers about their research, and there has been a tendency whereby researchers should write papers if they have time to apply for patents. However, the environment surrounding researchers is changing and it is becoming difficult even for those researchers with outstanding results to implement them in practice simply by publishing a paper on them. A tie-up with a corporation is important in order to put the results of research into practice, and it is highly effective and appealing to corporations for researchers to have patents granted for their research results. It is often said that obtaining a patent can provide a feeling of security for corporations, which successfully leads to smooth tie-ups with those corporations in order to put the results of research into practice. However, the fact remains that many researchers still think that patents are irrelevant in medical fields and that it is sufficient to present their groundbreaking results to the public through papers alone. We hope this article will help those researchers to understand that a patent is a highly effective tool that can be used to “visualize” their research results.
