Tokyo

The Japanese government has unveiled a plan to tighten controls on intellectual property — and encourage reluctant researchers to apply for patents.

The 55-point plan, which was published on 3 July by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Strategic Council on Intellectual Property, aims to establish graduate programmes to teach intellectual-property rights. It also offers the courts guidelines on the appropriate punishment for patent infringements, and a framework for implementing an agreement reached last month with the United States on mutual recognition of materials used in patent examinations. It also sets out rules for the transfer of tools and materials between researchers and research institutions.

“There are still many things to be done, but this is a milestone,” says Takafumi Yamamoto, chief executive of the Center for Advanced Science and Technology Incubation, a company that patents inventions at the University of Tokyo. “This is the first sign of a clear direction for the use of intellectual property in Japan,” he says.

Some say that the package will make it easier for researchers to patent their innovations and profit from them. Since 1999 Japanese law has allowed, but not required, funding agencies to yield patents to researchers or their institutions. Critics say that many funding agencies have retained control of patents, but the new measures strongly encourage them to hand over control to research institutions.

The package broadly reflects proposals put forward by the National Forum for Intellectual Property Strategy earlier this year (see Nature 415, 354; 200210.1038/415354a), although some elements are missing. “The proposals include provisions to strengthen education in patent law, but they don't include measures for bringing scientists into law classes,” complains Koichi Sumikura, a specialist in intellectual property at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo and a member of the forum.

Some researchers fear that the government's obsession with intellectual property may lead it to fund science on the basis of patents, instead of quality. The reforms are scheduled to come into effect in 2004 as part of a shake-up of Japan's universities. Subsequently, the proposal document calls for a “distribution of resources to universities and public research institutions that appropriately reflects an evaluation of the institutions' progress in attaining and making use of patents”.

“Rewarding patents is good, but not if it means a decrease in funding for basic science,” says Keiichi Kodaira, president of the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Kanagawa.