Upon comparing Japan with the U.S. on the revenue of IP royalties listed on an international statistics website, the U.S. obtains 3.5 times the revenue of that obtained in Japan. Why does such a huge difference occur between Japan and the U.S.?
There are two predominant schools of thought within companies concerning intellectual property (IP). The first school of thought emphasizes obtaining intellectual property rights (IPRs) to safeguard the business while managing costs, such as application fees and maintenance fees. Whereas the second school of thought advocates pursuing profits directly from the IPRs themselves.
In other words, companies that adhere to the first school of thought appear to be conscious of “protecting products with patents”, and companies that follow the second school of thought appear to be conscious of “using patents to earn a profit”.
I believe that companies that follow this second school of thought are able to obtain another form of revenue by monetizing their patents in addition to obtaining revenue via patent protection of their products.
We at INFORT continue to encourage our clients to adopt an IP strategy (an ‘aggressive’ IP strategy) aligning with the aforementioned second school of thought, and it is our utmost desire to support our clients in order to enable the monetization of their patents.
INFORT PATENT FIRM
Representative Patent Attorney
Hiroyoshi AOKI
