Intellectual Property Strategy
Basic Policy for Intellectual Property
Meidensha has created the basic policy below as a guideline for reducing intellectual property risks and acquiring intellectual property rights that will aid our management and business strategies.
- Creating and acquiring intellectual property rights that will improve business value
- Engaging in intellectual property activities that will assist sustainability management
- Respecting the intellectual property rights of third parties
Intellectual property strategy
To respond to a changing corporate management environment and business environment, the Company works on improving our intellectual property activities as a way to enhance the competitiveness of existing business areas and to develop new products and business areas.
1 Strategic intellectual property activities
The Company aims to acquire intellectual property rights that will help enhance our competitiveness in existing business areas by augmenting our development capabilities. We engage in strategic intellectual property activities to acquire rights as a way to build a solid IP portfolio. These activities focus on solid technologies providing a market advantage.
2 Intellectual property activities adapted to sustainability management
Using the intellectual property rights we hold for environmental technologies, the Company works on projects designed to develop new products and business areas through collaborative creation done with private-sector corporations and public-sector organizations throughout the world. As one example, we have registered our environmental technologies on the WIPO Green platform, taking part on it as a corporate partner. WIPO GREEN is a platform that the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) provides for promoting the use of environmental technology.
3 Intellectual property activity organization
A Patent Manager working on intellectual property activities is assigned to each technology department. The Intellectual Property Department and Patent Managers work together on intellectual property activities. Each technology department formulates an Intellectual Property Activity Plan reflecting its R&D Plan, and uses it to guide its work on intellectual property activities.
4 IP education and awareness-raising
The Company has incorporated education and awareness-raising for IP activities into our business operations. We have created an invention incentive program to reward employee-created inventions and designs, along with an IP training program to help employees acquire IP-related knowledge and skills.
Trend in Shares of ownership of domestic and overseas rights
The chart below shows the trend in the Company’s share of ownership of patent rights and design rights inside and outside Japan.
Meidensha is working to gain a degree of freedom for our overseas business activities by adding to the number of overseas rights we hold as our business grows overseas.
