By allowing inventors to profit from their creations for a limited time, intellectual property systems — especially those geared to industry — provide financial incentive for innovation, research and development, contributing to the technological progress of society.

In Japan, the government agency in charge of IP is the Japan Patent Office, which oversees patents, utility models, designs and trademarks.

Because of digitalization, the coronavirus pandemic and the need for greater sustainability to reshape society, the JPO is working diligently to support global corporate activities by granting IP rights and updating itself to match the required changes.

“Although IP systems have been changing with the times, what’s important is that IP rights are necessary to stimulate innovation,” said Susumu Iwasaki, deputy commissioner of the JPO. “And that’s exactly the same in achieving the U.N.’s sustainable development goals, which we are focusing on now.”

To explain its initiatives for the SDGs, the JPO is scheduled to co-organize a symposium on environmental issues in March in collaboration with its counterparts in the U.S. and Europe — the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the European Patent Office.

“By sharing technological models and cases internationally, we want to show how IP rights could contribute to solving environmental issues,” said Iwasaki.

Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on society and the business environment is becoming harsher. In 2020, there were around 288,000 patent applications, down 6.3% from 2019.

“On the other hand, the number of requests for patent examinations from January to November in 2021 represents an increase of 3.7% compared with the same period in 2020,” Iwasaki said. “We analyzed these figures and saw that companies are making the necessary requests for examinations while being quite selective with their patent applications.”

To facilitate the transition to a new lifestyle in terms of mitigating COVID-19 infections, responding to the rapid growth of digital society and further improving the user-friendliness of administrative procedures, the JPO completed the elimination of nearly all instances of using seals or signatures for its procedures from December 2020 to June 2021, retaining their use only in cases where they were absolutely necessary.

“Also, we started offering claimants and rights holders a convenient option to attend oral proceedings for trials for patent invalidation online via a web conferencing system,” said Iwasaki. There have been 11 cases (as of Jan. 5) since the launch of the new practice in October, according to the JPO.

While struggling with the pandemic-induced economic downturn, the JPO is working hard to support global business activities, making use of such multilateral efforts as the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) project.

With the aim of providing accelerated patent prosecution procedures, the PPH enables each participating patent office around the world to benefit from work previously done by other patent offices.

Under the PPH, an applicant whose claims have been determined to be patentable in the office of first filing (OFF), is able to undergo an accelerated examination in the office of second filing (OSF) with simplified procedures based on bilateral office agreements.

Since the JPO and the USPTO launched the first pilot program in 2006, the PPH has been growing into a global network, with many countries now participating.

“To promote patent acquisition internationally, there are two aspects that matter: substantive examinations and procedures,” Iwasaki said.

From a procedural point of view, the Patent Cooperation Treaty, an international legal agreement concluded in 1970, has facilitated international patent applications by providing unified filing procedures to protect inventions in each of the participating countries.

Just like caring for athletes

Roku-Roku’s microfine machining centers support production in various industries in Japan and abroad. The machines allow operators to monitor the environment of their location and situation of operation at all times. Up to 36 sensors are installed in a single machine. They collect and accumulate a wide range of information about the machine, including temperature of the room it is located in, as well as the output status of the motor, and are capable of detecting slight changes or signs of abnormality. Data from the sensors is provided to users and Roku-Roku through the company’s original internet platform on a cloud service.

“Just like athletes who need to care about managing and maintaining their health, microfine machining centers need a primary care doctor to keep them in their best condition at all times,” Mitsuru Kaitoh said of this service, called AI machine doctor.

The service was launched in 2018. It was developed as the concentration and miniaturization of metal molds was progressing at an accelerated pace. A slight fluctuation in the temperature of the operating environment can affect the precision of machining when it comes to areas where extremely fine processing of below 1 micron is required, such as in the processing of smartphone components. Problems of processing precision used to be attributed to machine issues. Nowadays, it is difficult to address problems just by automating correction functions or relying on experience or intuition of the operator. “At some point, we just decided it’s not a problem that can be resolved by single efforts,” Kaitoh said.

Pursuit of ‘niche top’

Roku-Roku, which was founded in the Meiji Era (1868 to 1912) and developed Japan’s first vertical-standing machining center, supported the economic development of the era and Japan’s modernization efforts. After surviving a fierce price war, the company began to exclusively focus on manufacturing of microfine machining centers in the second half of the 1990s. In the meantime, the company looked to become a “niche top” in this area. To accomplish this, it developed a business model in which it works closely with users to support processing work as part of its growth strategy, aiming to continue to address customer needs for ultra-high precision and high quality. The IoT technology, which enables constant monitoring, and an analysis function using AI, which enables abnormality detection and preventive maintenance, was the driving force that thrust the company to their “niche top” position.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s J-Startup program has been providing significant support to 139 promising startups since its inception in June 2018. Its aim is to produce companies that can compete in the international arena.

Companies receiving the program’s support include many that have grown into unicorns — unlisted companies that are evaluated highly by the market and whose corporate value or market capitalization is at least $1 billion.

They include Spiber Inc., which develops next-generation fibers inspired by spider silk, and Preferred Networks Inc., known as PFN, that boasts artificial intelligence technology that sees high demand from large companies.

At first look, companies under the J-Startup program may appear mainly to be those in businesses that take advantage of cutting-edge technologies in sectors such as AI, robotics, drones and aerospace. But in fact the businesses are more varied, from businesses in resource recycling or environment- and energy-related areas that impact regional economies, to companies with technology that can support an aging society and services that help people solve issues they face in their daily lives.

In particular, with the spread of coronavirus transforming society and people’s living environments, new needs and lifestyles are emerging, and there is growing demand for technology and services that can address them.

“Society’s needs are increasingly diverse,” Hajime Furuya, director of METI’s Startup and New Business Promotion Office, said. “That’s why the role of startups that provide services that are fine-tuned to such needs is growing in importance.”

In its early period, the J-Startup program’s focus was on increasing the legitimacy of startups in society’s eye and producing role models, but three years in, officials are starting to feel the need to enhance its support by tailoring measures to each developmental stage of the business and to different growth strategies.

Koizumi: AI Quest is a program aimed at creating a place of practical learning, mainly using case studies based on actual issues experienced by businesses.

Conceived on our belief that personnel development is essential for a wider introduction of AI in society, the program was carried out from October to February, with about 200 participants. Saito and Orimo helped us in many respects of the program, including development of educational methods, such as material development, operation of the program and review of its impact.

There are many examples of developing AI specialists using advanced methods. For example, a programming school in France, called “42,” charges no tuition fees but it conducts a monthlong, round-the-clock test. Meanwhile in the United States, there are people who pay high tuition to attend schools because internet companies, including GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon), are hiring AI specialists at high salaries.

So overseas, such intense competition between people seeking to enter the industry has partially driven the development of education.

Saito: Naturally, if the size of the job market where one can play a viable role is significant, it serves as an incentive to learn. The U.S. has an established design of a game in which people who have solved a problem can take control of business, but Japan is still in a phase where such a game is being created.

That is why it is important to show to the public an image of talent who can generate economic impact through specific achievements capitalizing on AI, which will help increase motivation for learning — not just the vague air of us doing an AI-related project.

I think it is necessary to create an ecosystem where such individuals will play an active role in accelerating an increased use of AI in society.

Orimo: But in Japan, we have an issue to solve before setting an ideal talent model. Our problem is that, in Japan, corporate and personnel strategies aren’t linked together. Personnel measures are carried out without clearly defined job descriptions. It’s often unclear what types of talent you have on your team. When you’re thinking of corporate strategy for the future, you’re not sure how many digital specialists may become necessary.

In Japan, where the population is aging quickly and the birthrate is low, an urgent issue is to solve the shortage of labor by allowing diverse work styles. 

However, discussions about what employment practices should look like and what skills will be in demand in the future are happening not only in Japan, but around the world in anticipation of changes in the structure of industry and employment.

A report released by the World Economic Forum in 2018 said a “robot revolution” is expected to create 133 million new jobs by 2022, while 75 million existing jobs could be displaced. 

The report from the forum ― known for its annual meeting held in Davos, Switzerland ― painted a positive picture of a future brought on by the Fourth Industrial Revolution where technologies such as the “internet of things” and AI develop. However, at the same time, it pointed out that it takes a labor force equipped with new skills to harness growth opportunities.

The report stressed the need for an education system that supports individuals in improving or relearning skills and social policies aimed at promoting lifelong learning.

Individuals in focus

Needless to say, the Japanese government already has comprehensive talent and employment policies aimed at helping develop creativity and the country’s strengths by capitalizing on information technology.

For instance, there is a policy to promote the learning of IT skills based on an employee’s knowledge and in each industry area or such skills required in a cross-sectoral manner. Another example is a measure to support education for equipping individuals with basic IT literacy in cooperation with universities and other institutions. Moreover, the government places an emphasis on policies to stimulate motivation and enthusiasm in workers that leads to helping improve productivity or create new types of value for the company.

The government also seeks to promote clarification of duties for employees and their improved treatment based on fair performance evaluation. It even accepts having a side business and freelancing as work style options, because it attaches importance to the power of individuals as the source of value creation.

Kouki Noumura, director of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s Human Resources Policy Office, said the ministry’s policy on workforce and employment practices going forward is to encourage flexible work styles.

“In the coming era where there would be rapid progress stemmed from the Fourth Industrial Revolution and population aging, what organizations need is the ability to adapt to a changing environment,” Noumura said. “And for that, you need to create an environment where individuals can maximize their sense of value. We in the government are promoting flexible work styles so that each individual can find a work style that best suits them and can maximize their skills.”

Drones fly the skies over the plant. Image data is accumulated, collected from high above and inside facilities, where visual inspection is difficult. Sensors installed on some equipment regularly collect and monitor information such as temperature and vibration. AI systems analyze this data for inspection and trouble detection purposes.

A new service of detecting anomalies in pipelines from noise or the speed of corrosion, as well as new concepts, such as the “digital twin” where the data of an actual plant and those of a virtual plant on a computer are linked, have been created. This is the new high-tech normal of equipment maintenance.

The tide of digitalization is sweeping over traditional facilities. This comes at a time when it has become more difficult to ensure the safety of plants while at the same time improving their productivity.

As equipment ages, man hours required for maintenance and inspection work increase, but the number of workers operating plants or ensuring their safety are decreasing. Operating a plant for longer without interruption helps enhance profitability because companies can avoid missing manufacturing opportunities. However, if this situation continues, it becomes difficult to not only maintain or improve productivity, but also ensure safety.

Structural changes surrounding plants and innovations in digital technology have driven moves to look at equipment maintenance from a fresh angle and the ongoing shift to the digital transformation strategy, which adds new value to existing businesses.

Responding to new needs

There are now plant operators who have adopted top-down management strategies, instead of simply leaving operational improvement to plant staff. More prominent these days, however, are moves where the growth of new types of equipment maintenance needs is regarded as a business opportunity.

For instance, an increasing number of companies in other industries, not just conventional equipment makers and engineering companies, are entering this area. There is also growing moves for companies to collaborate in projects involving internet of things technology at their plants.

Startups with unique know-how in areas such as sensors and big data analytics are emerging as key players in the field of smart maintenance and are increasingly making their presence felt.

Some companies have strived to fundamentally improve the social environment surrounding nursing care by storing scientific data and empirical values, which are difficult to visualize, in artificial intelligence.

ExaWizards Inc., a startup founded in 2016, has been working on reforming nursing care sites, including those with patients suffering from dementia.

ExaWizards President and CEO Ko Ishiyama served as the first head of the Recruit Institute of Technology and later joined a university-originated venture company in 2017, founded by Yoichi Takebayashi, a specially appointed professor at Shizuoka University, and others. Takebayashi is a leading expert in data analysis for dementia. The venture firm merged with AI venture ExaIntelligence, originating from Kyoto University, leading to the launch of ExaWizards.

One of many projects that ExaWizards has concurrently promoted is the effort to disseminate a caregiving method known as Humanitude, which was developed in France more than 40 years ago. The company has also been working to analyze the effects of this method and spread the proper way of its caregiving.

One example from this project is to help nurture personnel in the nursing care field by utilizing the company’s original video coaching app and AI.

“For example, in order to communicate with people suffering from dementia, you need to talk to them from a distance of about 20 centimeters while sustaining eye contact,” Ishiyama said. “If you talk to them from their side or touch their body without proper knowledge of how to contact them, they might be surprised and it could prompt an adverse reaction.”

ExaWizards is now developing a service that enables caregivers to send a video capturing their actual caregiving approach; then the company’s AI would measure the distance of their contact with a patient. The video would be sent back to the caregivers, featuring written advice in red pen and comments from caregiving experts. An example of such a comment could be, “It’s better for you to have your face in front of the patient so that you can easily maintain eye contact.”

If this service becomes widely used, it would surely provide an opportunity for caregivers to reflect on their approach. Additionally, it could contribute to the improvement of the quality of overall care provided by a facility.

“Acquiring proper caregiving methods could reduce the chances of adverse reactions from patients, which would eventually alleviate the burden on caregivers themselves,” Ishiyama noted.

From March, ExaWizards also began providing a service to analyze nursing care data possessed by municipal governments. Assessing intervention effects in dementia care has been difficult because symptoms advance as time goes by. But if the introduction of AI were to help predict transitions of nursing care levels, it could visualize intervention effects. It could enable municipalities to have clearer prospects for their future fiscal conditions and properly implement projects for prevention.

The Mie Prefectural Government will begin trial use of AI to help decide whether a temporary protective custody order is necessary for a child suspected of being abused.

The prefectural government will place tablet devices loaded with the relevant app, developed by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), at selected local child guidance centers. The trial will start in June and its results will then be evaluated.

If viewed superficially, this project could be interpreted as being part of a wider trend, in which the latest technology is applied to help address urgent issues that evoke strong societal responses. But behind this undertaking lies a trajectory of specialized efforts by parties familiar with how convoluted child abuse countermeasures can be. These parties are aware of the complex familial and societal issues surrounding child abuse, and that there is not a “one size fits all” solution to the problem.

Concern over similar incidents

In 2012, a number of abuse cases saw the lives of small children taken in Mie, even though a local child guidance center was aware of the signs of potential child abuse.

Akira Suzuki, who headed another child guidance center in Mie when those incidents occurred, reflected back on that time.

“A center’s ability to estimate risk is certain to come up when the relevant assessment committee discusses countermeasures. But depending solely on staffers’ experience and their instincts would probably result in seeing similar cases occur again at a time when society, as well as the kinds of abuse, become more diverse. That was how I felt then,” said Suzuki, who headed the Mie Prefectural Child Guidance Center through March, a facility that presides over five other such centers in the prefecture.

Around that time, Suzuki learned about a checklist used in Western countries to judge the risk of child abuse recurrences based on past abuse data. Front-line operations and the effective allocation of human resources were assigned to cases based on the data analysis. He applied the checklist to cases that he was involved in.

“Deep down I was convinced by the results,” Suzuki recalled.

Kota Takaoka backed efforts by Suzuki and others seeking to adapt the risk assessment checklist for Mie’s purposes. Then an assistant professor at Chiba University, Takaoka, in his capacity as a clinical psychologist, conducted front-line fieldwork at child guidance centers, hospitals and police stations.

“He compiled and helped to create an evidence-based checklist after consulting with staff members,” Suzuki noted.

Full-scale use of the checklist began in fiscal 2013, and it was stipulated that a temporary protective custody order should be considered if any one of the checklist’s 15 items were met. The items included “a third party witnessed a child being hit in the face” and “there are scars or bruising above a child’s neck or on the abdomen.”

As a result, the number of children placed under emergency protection and listing abuse as their chief reason for wanting to do so doubled in 2015 from 198 in 2012.

The executive order, which allows authorities to remove children from their parents without parental consent, caused a great deal of confusion and was negatively perceived by schools and nurseries.

Even after Takaoka moved to the Probabilistic Modeling Research Team of the Artificial Intelligence Research Center at AIST, Suzuki’s ties with him continued. Their efforts developed further and data from 5,000 cases has been accumulated using the checklist.

Exploring risk and recurrence

With limited information at their disposal, there are limits to what people can predict. The undertaking by the AIST team and Mie Prefecture is an effort to analyze abuse risks and its potential recurrence via AI from cases that came to light.

For example, the potential child abuse recurrence rate is figured after analyzing factors used to calculate how severe the risk of abuse might be, including where scars are located on a child’s body, their family makeup, parental accounts and any track record of home visitations and consultations. Through the newly introduced tablet devices, more data would be accumulated, which in itself would then become more expansive.

This method of utilizing data is expected to be very useful not only when deciding whether to implement a temporary protective custody order, but also whether to return children to their homes. This is because there is much room to apply machine learning and mathematical statistics methods, such as probabilistic modeling, when making future predictions.

Meanwhile, the officials concerned all stress that the data and AI are not an all-encompassing solution.

“It’s people who make any final judgments and decisions. The following three factors are essential for taking proper measures (against child abuse) — the information necessary to decide how to address the situation; the availability of personnel able to make decisions; and having a team who can execute what’s decided. We should always keep that in mind,” Suzuki said.

The importance of using evidence when formulating policy is repeatedly noted. The idea is to promote discussion of policymaking and decisions based on evidence revealed through scientific analysis. Mie’s efforts are one example where such an idea is becoming prevalent within the public welfare sector. Officials from other municipalities have expressed interest in Mie Prefecture’s undertaking.

A teacher standing in front of a blackboard oversees a large class — this image of the typical classroom has persisted for more than 150 years since the Meiji Era.

Daisuke Inada, CEO of atama plus Inc., which provides study support through artificial intelligence, says he wants to drastically transform this long-lasting image. He jointly founded the company, based in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward, in April 2017 with two of his classmates from his alma mater, the University of Tokyo, after working at a major trading house.

The company offers an approach that utilizes AI to analyze a customer’s learning history, degree of concentration and propensity for mistakes on a real-time basis. This enables the firm to provide customized learning materials for each individual. Although the service has only been around for a year or so, it has been increasingly utilized by major private preparatory schools.

The advantage of using AI is being able to unfailingly identify the root cause of why a student is unable to solve a problem. For example, the sine formula is something first-year high school students tend to struggle with. People generally believe that simply solving similar problems over and over would eventually lead to overcoming their struggles. However, the reason behind this difficulty varies among students.

One student was told through the service that the reason of failing to solve a sine formula problem was their lack of understanding of what a triangle’s circumcenter is, which is necessary preliminary knowledge. The student went on to be advised that it’s efficient to review the Pythagorean theorem, which is taught in junior high school. The company says if a student works on solving problems for a while, its AI can figure out their strong and weak points, as well as the student’s level of understanding.

Inada hopes to halve the required time for basic learning through the company’s service and to enable students, using the surplus time, to nurture abilities to live independently in the future society. He thinks teachers would be able to play a primary role such as encouraging and taking care of students, without having to engage in a one-way lecture, if AI and humans share roles; with the former committing to teaching and the latter to coaching.

Winning hearts of test-takers

Affectionately known as “stapura,” a portmanteau of “study” and “plus,” and popular among students preparing for entrance exams, Studyplus Inc. based in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward offers an education-related app. The company is famous as a platform provider for such students with more than 3 million users.

If a student types when and how much they studied, as well as reference books they used into the smartphone app, those pieces of data would be visualized with graphs showing daily, weekly and monthly records. On first glance, it merely appears to be a digitalization of one’s study history, which used to be recorded manually. However, the company’s service has various features to grab the interest of the digital native generation whose smartphones are always with them.

One of them is the utilization of social networking services (SNS). Some users have said that they would like to boost their motivation by actively interacting with students aiming for the same schools, rather than with close friends, as they prefer not to discuss such topics with them. To meet this demand, the company enhanced its SNS functions, leading to a sharp increase in its app’s users. Additionally, increasing numbers of cram schools and private preparatory schools have used the service, hoping to keep tabs on their students’ study progress at home.

“All in all, what matters is motivation.” This phrase that came up frequently in conversations that Studyplus President Takashi Hirose had with his friends when he was a student preparing for entrance exams. These conversations served as the origin of the development of the service.

“In conventional education, viewpoints from the teaching side were stronger and students’ individual characters and differences among them were not taken into consideration,” Hirose said. “If technological help is introduced, a proactive learning style would take root among students. How to fuel motivation will be a key in the process.”

Talents in programming

Based in Tokyo’s Minato Ward, Life is Tech Inc. is a company leading a new market of programming education. The firm currently focuses on developing online learning services in addition to its core business of operating camps and schools where junior high and high school students study programming and IT.

One of the products resulting from the company’s efforts is a set of educational programming materials that launched in April. The firm signed a license agreement with The Walt Disney Co. (Japan) for these materials, which feature an enhanced taste of entertainment to raise the continuity rate — a challenge of online learning. The product features works to maintain user interest here and there, including popular Disney characters who appear in its lessons and the “Book of Magic,” provided offline that works with the online content and stories.

It has sold well, despite costing ¥128,000, which is by no means inexpensive. Not all of the purchasers have prior experience with programming. However, according to the company, some consumers believe it’s actually a bargain if it’s viewed as an investment since they can enjoy learning programming, a beneficial skill for their futures.

Superheroes in IT field

Life is Tech was founded in 2010 by CEO Yusuke Mizuno, who used to work as a part-time teacher at private Kaisei Senior High School in Arakawa Ward, Tokyo. It is one of the well-established companies among edtech startups.

What led to the launch of the company was an inquiry from one of his students at the high school, who said, “I’d like to create and introduce a self-built game at the school’s cultural festival.” Mizuno thought there must be a similar number of students who like computers and IT as those who are fond of baseball or soccer, but there were no places where they can learn or opportunities to take chances in those fields.

Mizuno has worked on expanding the base of personnel in programming. “We need a system to produce superheroes in the IT industry — something like we see in the baseball world where there is a path to go professional following a successful career at Koshien,” he said. Koshien is a famous national baseball tournament for high school players held at Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture.

Eight years after launching his company, he feels social changes surrounding programming education, which has led to the expansion of his company’s businesses. Besides the introduction of compulsory programming education at elementary schools in the near future, close proximity to IT — thanks to the widespread use of smartphones — has spurred on motivation among students to learn.

At the Teens Apps Awards contest where junior high and high school students compete in developing smartphone applications, many students who participated in the camps organized by Life is Tech have won prizes.

Many students have come to share awareness and sentiments such as, “I’d like to do it by myself,” and “Programming is not a special skill.” According to the company, this occurs after they actually see their peers in the same generation solving problems faced by family members or have come to bring their everyday ideas into being, with the help of technology.

A market of $40 billion

According to American consulting firm Frost & Sullivan Inc., the average annual growth rate of the edtech market is estimated to be 18.3 percent. The market revenue is expected to grow to over $40 billion.

Some people point out that Japan lags behind, especially in introducing technology to public education. However, Inada of atama plus said: “It’s the same anywhere in the world in that it takes time to transform the classroom. Once the national strategy becomes clearer, Japan would rather have more rooms to have explosive growth in introducing such technology.”

Mizuno of Life is Tech has his eyes on developing the service overseas, noting, “High-quality Japanese educational materials have been well-received in the U.S.”

Japan has embarked on educational reform, adding the promotion of edtech to the government-led initiative of the so-called human resources development revolution. The edtech market has been driven by fledgling startups, but these days, major firms are active in mergers and acquisitions in this field. Edtech is possibly about to kick into gear after going through this period of growth.