Intellectual Property Policies for the Twenty-First Century: The Japanese Experience in Wealth Creation Introduction As Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka remarked upon being awarded the Japanese Order of Culture, “Inventions are the fount of culture. They are essential to any culture’s development. There have been many significant inventions throughout the course of history - among them the ancient inventions of the water clock and paper-making, the invention of the printing press in the Middle Ages and, more recently, Edison’s phonograph and the steam engine, which powered the industrial revolution. All of these inventions have had a profound impact on the course of human civilization and sparked great cultural development.” Sakichi Toyoda, widely acknowledged as one of Japan’s top ten inventors of all time for his invention of the world’s best automatic looms, was very offended by American policies to exclude Japanese in the early decades of the 20th century. Commenting on these anti-Japanese policies, he said ruefully, “What have the Japanese contributed to the building of modern civilization? The Chinese invented the compass, but the Japanese have invented nothing. That is why the Americans see Japan only as a copycat nation.” Believing that Japan had to produce outstanding inventions, to demonstrate to the United States that the Japanese also possessed very capable intellects, he donated large sums of money to the Japan Institute of Invention and Innovation to promote the invention of efficient storage batteries. Indeed, it was his belief that inventing useful technologies and obtaining good patents contributed to the advance of civilization – and that patents are thus the foundation of civilization. [...] Epilogue When I was appointed JPO Commissioner in July 1996, I was curious about what kind of person files a patent application. How do the people at startup companies invent their new products, and how do they successfully commercialize them? Thus I was interested in meeting people from SMEs and in touring factories and research facilities. And I was surprised to hear people complain that, “the JPO is the only hope we have of protecting SME technology, but the examination takes so long that counterfeit products are taking our customers away before we even get the patent.” Knowing that seeing is believing, I visited R&D laboratories and intellectual property offices in big companies. I went to universities and talked with chancellors and deans, and I sought out their views on how the patent process impacts research and development and what they would like to see done about the problems. In trying to get other people to tell me what they thought, I realized I had to put my own thinking on the table as well, and I embarked upon a nationwide speaking tour. I went not only to Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya but also to Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima, Takamatsu, Fukuoka, Naha, and almost everywhere else throughout Japan. I spoke with the people and sought out their views, and I made an effort to get a first-hand feel for the pulse of the country. I went to symposia hosted by the ten leading Japanese intellectual property organizations and I was invited to speak to the economic and business organizations. I was on a Tokai University television hook-up to all of their campuses, nationwide. I spoke at Kyoto University, Ritsumeikan University and in other places. I did the whole circuit. And each time I spoke, I felt that people went away more interested in patent issues. I treasured these people’s views on the system, and their criticisms. I tried to make sure that their comments, e-mail, letters, and other messages came to be part of the thinking, as we worked for systemic reforms. I was also interested in finding out how things worked overseas, so I visited WIPO, the European Patent Office (EPO), the EU Office for Harmonization in Internal Markets (OHIM), and the American, British, German, French, and Austrian patent offices as well as those in China, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. And as I saw how other patent offices handled incoming applications, how they did their examinations, and how they notified applicants, I was constantly comparing this with the Japanese situation. In some aspects, Japan was ahead of the rest of the world. In others, we had some catching up to do. Realizing how important patents will be in the 21st century, I decided that we needed a national effort to restructure our patent system for the information age, and I asked Yoshito Arima, the former President of the University of Tokyo and Minister of Education, Science and Technology to help form a Commission on Intellectual Property Rights for the Twenty-first Century in the fall of 1996. In addition to Arima, who served as chair, the Commission included leading academicians, business leaders, media people, and others who had not been much involved in patents and were able to look at things with a fresh eye. The Commission held its wide-ranging discussions over breakfast, with the secretariat’s documents distributed ahead of time so that the discussion could be as free-wheeling as possible. It was not, as several people commented, at all typical of the way the bureaucracy does things, and the Commission’s thoughtful discussions culminated in a set of eight recommendations in April 1997. These recommendations were:
(1) to broaden the scope of intellectual property (2) to strengthen the protection for intellectual property (3) to enable universities to play a stronger role in patents (4) to establish a patent market (5) to establish cyber-patents (6) to help the developing countries strengthen their patent systems (7) to work for global patents (8) to mount a national effort on intellectual property rights issues
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