The Intellectual Property High Court, established in April 2005, is only a first step to a general reform of legal systems concerning the intellectual property, in spite of legal circle's publicity for it as an epochmaking achievement. The greatest problems is the failure of the highly needed introduction of technical judges due to the opposition by legal professionals, who regard engineers' view as too limited to make well-balanced legal judgments. This means trials under 100% legal judges, while we had been demanding 50% legal and 50% technical judges. Another problem is that many engineers are little interested in the problem, which will only perpetuate their subserviency to lawyers.

View full abstract

Due to the industrial revolution by the development of information technology that started in the late '90s, standardization of manufacturing technology has spread and as a result, the number of counterfeits has been increasing rapidly. The number of counterfeits made in China is particularly great and Japanese companies have been affected by them a lot. It is indispensable to acquire the intellectual property strategy to cope with it. On the other hand, China also has strengthened the protection of intellectual property rights. It is urgent for Japan to train world class human resources with the expertise in intellectual property rights.

View full abstract

The current legal system on intellectual properties provides different definitions of the relationship of the creator of intellectual properties with the organization he/she belongs to for different categories. However, the formal classification of intellectual properties, on which the system is based, does not actually reflect their essential features in relation to the innovation they bring about. This is why the personal reward to the author is often unrealistic. The paper discusses, apart from the current legal framework, the proper way of rewarding engineers as innovators which takes into account the process how a technology results in an innovation, as well as the position of the engineer in question in his/her organization. The management of engineers involved in an innovative process involves three steps: promoting creation of new knowledge, transferring the knowledge to the organization, and making the organization employ the knowledge. These steps are, however, practically common to patents, trade secrets and copyrights, and do not differentiate the reward to the authors. Important determinants of the reward include: uncertainty in commercialization of the technology in question, and mobility of engineers in the organization. Appropriate systems of intellectual properties management, including monetary and non-monetary reward and contracts with retirees, were studied for four cases based on different combinations of those factors.

View full abstract

Japan has lost its industrial competitiveness on the global market for the past years. One of the reasons for reduced competitiveness is insufficient attention to the adverse influence of the WTO/TBT regime against Japanese industries in the manufacturing sector. Japan failed in paying an appropriate attention to the fact that competition under the WTO/TBT would no longer be one on a product quality which had long been a Japan's strength. Japan failed in recognizing that more attention should be paid to the strategic aspect of participation to standard-setting processes at the ISO/IEC. This paper discusses the latest governmental action plan on national standardization activities, and impact of the WTO/IEC framework. This paper also discusses staffing issues for more involvement in the international standardization arena.

View full abstract

Economic implications of the national systems concerning intellectual properties, including patents, for industrial and economic development have not been extensively studied in Japan. Examples of such studies are many in other countries, including those on effects of patent protection levels on international transactions such as trade and investment. While many problems remain unsolved, the relationships of the intellectual systems with economy should further be studied along this line. Various aspects of intellectual properties should be studied from a variety of points of view, including economy, management and others. As an artificial, legally constructed entity, the intellectual property system is involved in economic, social and human activities. Its management must require people who know this characteristic, along with social infrastructure which has yet to be further developed.

View full abstract

Japan has built the society based on those asset portfolios within real, financial and intellectual of its. Japanese division of labor has shifted a tendency toward making industrial vertical structure converged onto intellectual assets. It is coming soon the growth of global trade of intellectual property in near future, and then it will make the new troublesome items as an issue of institutional mixed commodities or national flagship-assets transaction which has own claims and obligations. In such situation, it is important that Japan has the system of national intellectual assets policy managing the global outcome.

View full abstract

Construction material, such as cement, has high transportation cost, and it has developed as local industry. By the TBT agreement in 1995, the international standard (ISO) was transposed to the standard of Japan (JIS) in a series of test method also in cement. There is no international standard in quality standard of cement. Recently EU standard was approved. EU pushes EU standard of specification of cement to the draft of ISO under Vienna agreement according to the original strategy of EU and major cement company in EU. The standard of Japan (JIS) was the level of the minimum standard, which the government purchases as a thing, but it was not approved under the strategy of cement industry without rather bigger confusion. Until now, as an industrial basic material, quality was not dealt with corporate strategy in Japan cement industry. According to EU standard of cement specification, EU cement industry also has a responsibility to explain to the user. Japan cement industry does not take account of these matters, which are not a problem solvable by the conventional government leading. The impact of normalization of international standard (ISO) on the cement industry of Japan and its correspondence taken as future our country are considered in this paper. The rationality in EN standard was desirable to make it useful for the user, manufacturers, and people, to take the completeness as a standard.

View full abstract

The volume of patents held by modern universities is increasing rapidly, causing the expenditure by university patent offices to increase enormously each year. However, these offices do not in general have sufficient budget to cover this work, so need to build themselves appropriate financial strategies. Real option analysis applies financial options theory to quantifying the value of management flexibility in a world of uncertainty. If used as a conceptual tool, it allows management to characterize the strategic value of an investment project. This paper describes the application of real option analysis to the financial strategy of the patent office of a university. The proposed method captures the value of managerial flexibility in the adapting of decisions related to patenting. It also provides a state-of-the-art technique for the valuation of the universities' patent portfolios and associated decision making in respect of strategic investments in their patents.

View full abstract