Ruth Taplin - Valuing Intellectual Property in Japan, Britain and the United States

As over half the assets of many major companies are now intangible assets, there is an increasing need to assess more accurately the value of intellectual property (IP) from a wider interdisciplinary perspective. Re-evaluating risk and understanding the true value of intellectual property is a major problem, particularly important for business practitioners, including business analysts and investors, venture capitalists, accountants, insurance experts, intellectual property lawyers and also for those who hold intellectual property assets, such as media, publishing and pharmaceutical companies, and universities and other research bodies. Written by the foremost authorities in the field from Britain, Japan and the US, this book considers the latest developments and puts forward much new thinking. The book includes thorough coverage of developments in Japan, which is reviewing the value of IP at a much quicker pace than any other country and is registering ever-increasing numbers of patents in the course of inventing its way out of economic inertia.

Ruth Taplin is Director of the Centre for Japanese and East Asian Studies, Editor of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics and Research Fellow, Birkbeck College, University of London and the University of Leicester. She is the author/editor of nine books and has written special reports on East Asia for The Times for eight years.

First published 2004
by RoutledgeCurzon
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by RoutledgeCurzon
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.

RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

2004 Editorial matter and selection, Ruth Taplin; individual chapters, the contributors

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ISBN 0-203-48023-6 Master e-book ISBN

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Dr Tomoyuki Hisa is Assistant Professor at the University of Tokyo, RCAST, working under Prof. Katsuya Tamai. Dr Hisa specialises in medicine and IP. His Ph.D. is from Osaka City University and his MD degree is from Wakayama Medical College. He has won a number of awards for his work including the On the Spot Award from the National Cancer Institute, US.

Matthew R. Hogg LLB (Hons), LLM is a Technical Underwriter at R. J. Kiln and Co. Ltd, a leading managing agent at Lloyds of London. Matthew is the intellectual property expert at Kiln having a degree in Law and a Masters in Law and Economics from the University of Manchester. Prior to joining Kiln, Matthew worked in London and the US for a multinational insurance broker, specialising in intellectual property.

Takuma Kiso is Senior Economist and Head, Research DepartmentPublic Policy Mizuho Research Institute and contributes articles to a number of specialist magazines dealing with the rise of entrepreneurship in Japan. He contributed a chapter on entrepreneurship to Exploiting Patent Rights and a New Climate for Innovation in Japan edited by Ruth Taplin and published by the IPI in 2003.

Ian Lewis is a Director of Miller Insurance Services Ltd, a leading independent insurance broker. He heads the IP Team at Miller which has an unrivalled level of expertise among European insurance brokers. Ian has been advising industry professionals for over 15 years on the suitability and purchase of intellectual property insurance for litigation, liability and loss of revenue exposures.

Prof. Akio Nishizawa is Professor at the Graduate School of Economics and Management and Director of the New Industry Creation Hatchery Centre at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan. He is also former Director of the Japanese venture capital organisation JASCO.

Akito Tani is Deputy Director General of JETRO London.

Dr Ruth Taplin is Director, the Centre for Japanese and East Asian Studies, Editor of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics and Research Fellow, Birkbeck College, University of London and the University of Leicester. She is the author/editor of nine books.

Steve Van Dulken has worked at the British Library since 1974, since 1987 as a patent specialist. He helps to look after the national collection of patents from all around the world, provides training in patent documentation, maintains the librarys patent web site and answers awkward questions from enquirers. He is the editor of Introduction to Patents Information, now in its fourth edition and of Inventing the 20th Century.

Prof. Masako Wakui is an Associate Professor of Osaka City University, Graduate School of Law, who specialises in competition law and writes on IP-related matters.

Terry A. Young is recognised as an international expert in technology transfer, serving on many international advisory committees and boards. He served as President of the 3,200-member Association of University Technology Managers in 2001. He currently divides his time equally between management of technology transfer within the Texas A&M University System and as Editor of the international newsletter, Innovation Matters.

This book addresses the urgent need to re-evaluate risk and understand the true value of intellectual property (IP) in the light of the fact that intangible assets comprise up to 70 per cent of the assets of most major companies today and that profound changes are occurring in Japan concerning IP that have hitherto been unrecorded, especially in the English language. The days of valuing IP as a sole preserve of accountants and lawyers are pastit has become an interdisciplinary exercise involving business practitioners, insurance specialists, financiers, business analysts, venture capitalists and those who hold intellectual property assets such as media, publishing, pharmaceutical, electronics and software companies, and also universities. In this book, experts in their field explain how the interdisciplinary nature of valuing IP is evolving with, for example, the growth in insurance solutions to protect IP. Within this context we look at the growth of IP in different sectors in relation to national agendas in the countries that have most influenced these developmentsthe US, Britain and Japan. The US recognised the value of IP with the landmark Bayh-Dole amendment that influenced Britain and Japan. The Technical Licensing Organisation (TLO) has spread to Britain and Japan where it has been modified and cross-influenced by the TLO system in the United States which is now bringing forth issues concerning the reappraisal of valuing IP at the point of commercialisation from universities to industry. Japan is privatising all its universities this year to facilitate cooperation with industry in licensing inventions. Unique IP divisions within the universities are being created to promote this process. Japan is inventing its way out of economic inertia as it has done in the past and, in the process, is re-evaluating everything from brand valuation to the role of entrepreneurship through to universityindustry relationships, providing lessons that can be learned globally. Japan has been neglected in the literature, especially in relation to patents and IP, despite it being the second largest economy in the world, because of language barriers, its inward looking tendencies, cultural practices and the complexity of the patent system which is demystified in this book. The book also redresses such neglect, especially in English-language literature by chronicling and explaining all the current changes happening in Japan with respect to IP in a clear fashion and showing the inter-connections between these processes in the US and Britain, all within the interdisciplinary context.