Activities of the Japan Society for Science Policy and Research Management in early periods were focused on recommendations on science and technology policy rather than establishment of an original knowledge system based on theoretical and empirical analyses. However, the 1990s saw a general shift of subjects of the publications at the annual meeting from reviews or recommendations to case studies on specific technology development projects. This will facilitate identification of factors contributing to the success or failure of the projects, which will then be utilized in the development and management of technology. For such developments to occur, a vocabulary should be offered for mutual understanding of different organizations and industrial sectors. Such a framework is a prerequisite for exploitation in future of accumulated experiences, and will help presentations and criticism of new concepts. In this process the priority of research should be respected through accurate citations.

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The historical changes in innovation-related activities of Japanese companies were analyzed in relation to those in the patent system using statistical data and survey results on patent and R&D activities. Results indicated that corporate actions related to innovation, including R&D and licensing, depend on a number of variables, such as the financial situation of individual companies, trends in technology and corporate strategy, among which the institutions for intellectual properties are of limited importance. However, industries related to the information technology and biotechnology have been greatly influenced by the extension of the scope of the patent, which now includes software, business models and genetic information. For example, increase in licensing transactions in these fields was found to be in parallel with increase in patent applications. While strengthening the incentive for enterprises to advance innovations, the "pro-patent" policies for expansion and strengthening of patent rights may limit the spill over effects of technologies by bolstering technology monopoly. Future intellectual property policies should take these antagonistic effects into account.

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The Japanese Government has been implementing a variety of measures to create, protect and exploitation of intellectual properties to improve the competitiveness of the Japanese industry and revitalization of the economy at large. These measures were prompted by the evolving "knowledge-based" economy, in which the intangible knowledge and information create values, as well as by the rapidly improving technological level of Asian countries. This trend was triggered by the Prime Minister's policy speech in February 2002, resulting in the establishment of the Strategic Council on Intellectual Property, which developed the Intellectual Property Policy Outline in July 2002. The Basic Law on Intellectual Property was enacted in November 2002, and its enforcement in March 2003 was accompanied by the establishment of the Intellectual Property Policy Headquarters. Finally, the Strategic Program for the Creation, Protection and Exploitation of Intellectual Property was formed in July 2003. The Program comprises 270 items classified into five categories : creation, protection, exploitation, and content of intellectual properties and human resources engaging in intellectual properties. For the creation of intellectual properties, the program requires more emphasis on the role of universities as the focus of the national innovation system to promote systematic developmental activities. The program emphasizes the enforcement of such measures as accelerated patent examination, creation of a high court for intellectual property conflicts, and prevention of piracy for effective protection of intellectual properties. In order to advance exploitation of intellectual properties, the program demands the industry of its own strategic thinking and effort, and provides for supportive measures including revision of the patent trust system and establishment of a patent pool to facilitate standardization. Some of these measures were modeled on the American "pro-patent" policies, whose experiences, including miscalculations, should provide valuable suggestions for establishing Japan's own intellectual property strategy.

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The patent pool, a collective licensing of complementary patents, have recently been used for establishing new technology standards, as in the cases of the MPEG-2 digital format, digital versatile discs (DVDs), and advanced photographic system (APS). The improved clarity of guiding rules in the competition policy has facilitated this development. Pooling complementary patents is an effective measure to prevent excessive license fees and "hold-ups", as well as to provide "one-stop shopping", without limiting competition. However, the patent pool is often threatened by the presence of outsiders and possibility of a split. This paper analyzes such problems and discusses issues related to patent pool management and standardization policy.

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The drug market is oligopolistic owing to the governmental approval system and the patent system. Manufacturers have to allow a period of about ten years and an amount of 20-30 billion yen for the development of a new drug until its approval. Recovery of this investment within about ten years after launching is a prerequisite for continuing growth of the industry. Many "bioventures" resulting from biotechnology research, lacking resources for producing and marketing final products, usually depend on licensing big manufacturers to use their R&D outcomes. This situation presents various problems for universities and bioventures experience to obtain and exploit patents on genes and research tools. The licensing issue on Housey's assay procedure and the conflict involving Myriad Genetics about a patent for the BRCA genes for breast and ovarian cancers are commented as examples of those problems. Related issues include the deviation of bioventures' strategy on licensing of patents on genes and research tools from common-sense practice, public arbitration of licensing conflicts, reach-through loyalty, and excessive increase in cumulative loyalties. It is proposed to solve these problems, after an American model, by interventions of public agencies based on both pharmaceutical and industrial property administration policies. A public sector-based alternative would be a collective patent management system, in which patent proprietors agree upon common use of pooled patents under certain licensing conditions.

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[in Japanese]

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In the bounded rational world where uncertainty is high, decision makers make decision by the relatively simple rules which are called "routines". These routines are evaluated by certain standards, and change to improve results of the evaluations. The R&D projects on application of industrial technologies (the "Big Projects") was founded in 1966. This governmental R&D program had totally 33 projects until the end of this program in 1992. These projects essentially confronted uncertainty. So, the formation of these projects required the "routines". This brief essay analyses the routines of "Big Projects" at its formation process of each R&D project. Budget assessment by the Ministry of Finance was the only substantial evaluation when the Big Projects was operated. This analysis demonstrates that the routines of "Big Projects" evolved to adapt to this evaluation and the importance of evaluation system for R&D policy.

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In this paper we set out to investigate E-learning industry in the United States from 1998 to 2001. Research focus is to put on the firms' exploratory process for setting their business models. To comprehend the industrial performance, we propose our taxonomy attempting to identify the firms' selection of how to combine learning contents (domain knowledge) with their general knowledge on information technologies. We undertake database analysis on 73 US firms and present the systematization of emerging business models from our taxonomies. Our results indicate that business studies on E-learning firms benefit from the taxonomical analysis based on knowledge management, providing some managerial recommendation for the business.

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This paper is the proposal of education for efficient persons. We defined the requirement for talented people in industry in 21st century based on the research of Keidanren and other documents. And we worked out a new method of education combining business and academia. We applied the method and evaluated effectiveness. The people that play an active part in information and global society have to be creative, independent, cooperative, international and information literate. We propose three kinds of educational method for efficient persons from a practical viewpoint such as information systems. First proposal is a cooperative lecture based on business and academia. The subjects that study actual business are eager for practical study. Second proposal is distance learning with foreign country at related school. The objective is to increase creativity, cooperatives and information literacy. Third proposal is group learning at university. The objective is to increase independence, cooperation and information literacy. We tried those methods and proved to be effective for developing the ability.

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