Management of Technology and Innovation in Japan

From Practice: IP Management in Japanese Companies 381
The first point of contention is the content of the IP reports. In other words,
since the information relating to patents is already publicly disclosed, why is it
necessary to re-summarize this information again? This is work best done by the
market analysts, as there is no need for the companies to compile this, and no
value is added.
The second point claims that IP, or the company’s intellectual assets composed
mainly of patents, is confidential in-house information. Publicizing this information
in itself may result in a reduction in the company’s value. For example, information
such as important licensing facts, the position of the company’s core
patents, IP strategy, and technology strategy are all confidential, and announcing
this to the market is very difficult.
The third point is similar to the second point. It says that rather than simply listing
patents for disclosure like numerical data, it is more important for the company
to have the corporate strength to produce IP in the first place, to have intellectual
capital, and to have a basic company stance. For this reason, without the
disclosure of this fundamental corporate information, it will not constitute true IP
disclosure. This task is very difficult, and should be carried out inside the company,
but it is not something to be announced outside the company. Based on
these three reasons, many companies are against IP information disclosure.
Nevertheless, there are also companies that feel that IP reports are necessary.
One of these companies is Asahi Kasei. Mr. Tsurumi, the former head of Asahi
Kasei’s IP center, explained it this way.
“I believe that one of the major premises behind the issue of IP reporting is the
necessity for information disclosure. In my understanding, accounting information
is no more than past information. However, institutional investors need to invest
for the long term of five or ten years. Therefore, since they cannot make their
judgments based on the past results of accounting information alone, they are
looking for various kinds of information. IP reports are one type of this information.
What kind of core technology and core competence does this company use to
make a profit? Is the company thoroughly aware of this? It is also desirable for the
company to use charts to show that it is applying an IP business model to earn
profits.
In the case of Asahi Kasei, we do not yet prepare IP reports for each of our divisions
and member companies. Although I had considerable discussions with the
heads of materials departments at other companies in the process of preparing IP
reports, now there are no business areas, companies, or member companies that
are preparing clear stories in the format that I mentioned. Simply put, Japanese
companies are not carrying out business development with an awareness of this
kind of thing. Therefore, in order to be able to prepare a report, the company must
first have a clear awareness of itself. By doing this, the company can properly develop
its business. I understand that this is one way to set policy direction. We
need to take this approach and prepare a story for the development of our business,
and put this into writing. As there are many Japanese companies that cannot
do this, the intention to keep pace by properly preparing this is actually a policy
purpose, and Asahi Kasei has adopted this policy.