Policy Proposals  Industrial Technology   Business Strategy and Intellectual Property in the Global Innovation Era Executive Summary of Keidanren-WIPO-JPO Symposium

January 30, 2013
Keidanren
Industrial Technology Bureau

The creation of innovation helps to solve global challenges, and is also an urgent issue for enhancing the industrial competitiveness of Japan through the development of new markets.

Keidanren is advocating that Japan be an innovation-oriented nation that creates new value by integrating Japan's world-class science, technology, ICT, and other elements, and is proposing that Japan become an "innovation hub" that brings together companies and other leading players in innovation.

Given the progressive globalization of corporate activities, we held a symposium on January 30, 2013, under the theme of "Business Strategy and Intellectual Property in the Global Innovation Era" at the Keidanren Kaikan in Otemachi, Tokyo, inviting Francis Gurry, director general of WIPO, and Hiroyuki Fukano, commissioner of the Japan Patent Office (JPO).

At the symposium there was a shared recognition by Director General Gurry, Commissioner Fukano, and the business community that intellectual property plays a role as vital infrastructure for the creation of innovation, and that intellectual property contributes to the resolution of global issues.

From that perspective, WIPO described its efforts to achieve the harmonization of intellectual property systems and gave an introduction to WIPO GREEN, a platform for technology transfer jointly developed with the Japan Intellectual Property Association (JIPA).

JPO explained its approach to support global business activities.

The business community raised the following three points: (1) in promoting the globalization of corporate activities, it is essential to harmonize intellectual property systems in order to provide appropriate protection for intellectual property overseas as well as in Japan; (2) to create innovation, it is important to address not only the protection of intellectual property but also its use, and therefore the concept of WIPO GREEN is highly regarded; and (3) it is necessary to make rules for new issues that have appeared in recent years, such as cloud computing and big data.

With regard to points (1) and (3), it called upon WIPO to actively lead the discussion and endeavor to develop the business environment and called for JPO to show leadership in the discussion with other countries. Concerning WIPO GREEN in point (2), it expressed the hope that by fostering collaboration with other countries and UN agencies, WIPO GREEN will evolve into an increasingly attractive platform.