tokyo

A university in Japan is aiming to increase its output of patents by turning to entrepreneurship. Its research centre is to become the country's first university organization to set up a company encouraging researchers to seek both patents on their results and private buyers for the rights to these patents.

Japanese universities, unlike their counterparts in the West, produce very few patents. According to the country's patent office, for example, although 215,400 domestic patents were filed by Japan in 1996, only seven were produced in the same year by Tokyo University.

But now this university is attempting to alter the situation. Professors from its Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technologsy (RCAST) have set up the Intellectual Property Company. It will be staffed by the university's postgraduate students and by staff recruited from outside. The director, too, will be appointed from outside — possibly from one of the national banks.

The company will help to evaluate the marketability and patentability of inventions made by researchers from the research centre, which specializes in areas such as biotechnology, materials science and electronics. The company will then draft patent applications and help researchers to sell the patents to industry. The last of these tasks will be carried out either directly or through intermediate agents acting for both domestic and international companies. If the sales are successful, the intermediate agents will be paid a commission. Between five and ten per cent of the proceeds from patent rights will go to the inventor, and the rest will be paid into RCAST's research budget.

Some Japanese universities have already strengthened their links with industry to promote the commercial exploitation of their inventions. Those that have already set up university/industry liaison offices include Tsukuba University, Ritsumeikan University and Tokyo University itself. “Commercial application of research could potentially be the key to revive the Japanese economy,” says one official from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

Until now, however, the rights to most patentable discoveries and inventions made in universities have been transferred to industry in exchange for a ‘refund’ of the research costs to the inventor.

Isao Karube, professor in bioelectronics and biotechnology at RCAST, and one of the founder members of the Intellectual Property Company, has invented many products, including a biosensor for O-157 E. coli. Although his research efforts have produced more than 300 potentially patentable inventions, Karube has assigned most of them to private companies for patent application.

Obtaining patents, he says, adds nothing to the status of Japanese scientists; producing scientific papers is regarded as more important. “We never have the time to file applications for patents; we often give [inventions and discoveries] away to companies.”

Etsuo Niki, director of RCAST, hopes that the Intellectual Property Company will change such attitudes, as it will recruit professional staff to apply for patents. The company will also provide an opportunity for overseas companies to gain access to Japanese technology, which has long been considered inaccessible to industry outside the country, he says. “In fact, the first company to access us could well be a non-Japanese company; we are receiving a huge response from abroad,” says Karube.

Others point out that, for new ventures such as Tokyo University's company to succeed, those involved have to demonstrate an entrepreneurial spirit, which is rare in Japanese universities.