Management of Technology and Innovation in Japan

From Practice: IP Management in Japanese Companies 369
The company also has a strategic incentive system that works in conjunction with
this patent ranking system.
Looking at the Hitachi’s IP system organizationally, it is divided into head office
staff and staff stationed at each of the business divisions. There are almost
200 head office staff, and over 200 staff in the divisions. The division staff is stationed
at each of the research and development sites. However, the staff stationed
at these sites belongs to the IP department. The division staff is comprised of staff
that is in charge of patent application procedures and management, as well as
technical staff that determines patent strategies for the technologies.
The division clerical staff is dispatched from the head office staff department,
and the technical staff is technology specialists originally from the R&D department.
However, since a lack of technical staff ability has been pointed out in the
conventional system, in recent years, the patent strategy has been further strengthened
through the addition of top-tier personnel from R&D division.
The existence of a licensing department is an example of the organizational
uniqueness of the Hitachi’s IP department. The licensing department serves the
function of external sales and marketing for Hitachi’s IP. It has several dozen people,
who uncover infringements by other companies as one of their tasks. When a
patent infringement is discovered, the licensing department follows the process of
forcing the patent to be licensed out, or else carrying out an infringement dispute
and exposure. Furthermore, the licensing department publishes the Hitachi patents
on its own Website, and actively performs licensing-out activities.
Through these kinds of activities, Hitachi is carrying out the most advanced IP
management among Japanese companies, and at the same time is substantially in
the black with its IP income.
Canon
Now let us look at Canon’s IP management. As stated above, the most unique aspect
about Canon’s IP activities is cross-licensing. This is carried out through the
five steps shown in Figure 7.
First a technical information survey of competitor companies is carried out by
the IP technology center or the research and development department. Then a
check for infringement of Canon patents is made using the information on the
competitors’ technology. After that, the infringement details are gathered by the IP
technical center, and the confirmed infringements are reported to the IP business
center. The IP business center then instructs the contract and liaison center to start
warning activities and this begins the warning activities by Canon regarding the
patent infringements to the companies concerned.
In the case of negotiations with the company that received the warning, the
contract and liaison center takes care of this work. The contract and liaison center
investigates all the patents held by the other company, and checks whether that
company and its divisions have any patents that would be useful for Canon. Then
it examines the required cross-licensing agreement with those patents, and formulates
a negotiation strategy. If the other company has no desirable patents, Canon