Patenting or not patenting? An empirical analysis of the strategic intellectual property management by Japanese firms

Abstract

There are inventions that are: 1) products invention; 2) process invention; 3) process invention of products. For the products invention, it is possible to consider the presence or absence of direct infringement by making a comparison with the patented invention to obtain the allegedly infringing product and analysing them. On the other hand, such as the process invention of products, there is a problem that cannot be confirmed whether the infringement directly from the fact that its implementation act is done in the factory of the alleged infringer. Under such circumstances, if you want to exercise in the patent of the present invention provides a process invention of products, those difficulties in the litigation activity is accompanied by comparison with the products invention. In this paper, therefore we verify from statistical court data the reality of the exercise by the patent of the present invention provides a process invention of products. And, using the datasets from the Japan Patent Office’s, called ‘Survey of intellectual property activities’, we analyse the relationship between profitability and know-how or patent application, and consider the direction Japanese firms should aim for intellectual property management.