The SDGs adopted by the U.N. in September 2015 are intended to be achieved by 2030. The 17 goals and 169 associated targets are for both developing and advanced economies to pursue to realize a society that will “leave no one behind.”

Click here to find details of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s SDG initiatives.

There are many companies that provide students with online learning programs, but SuRaLa Net’s focus is on helping students with low academic ability.

“There is a correlation between academic ability and the income levels of households with students, in any part of the world,” SuRaLa Net Co. founder and Chief Executive Officer Takahiko Yunokawa said, explaining the company’s focus.

“But many educational companies, including those providing e-learning services, target students with high academic ability, and tend to leave behind children with low academic ability or from low-income households,” he continued. “We aim to eliminate a negative spiral of income gaps and educational gaps by providing educational materials online aimed at helping raise the academic ability of students with low academic skills,” he said. “And we see a business opportunity there.”

“In the corner of my mind, there was a vague idea that we may be able to contribute to solving social issues by, for example, promoting literacy in emerging countries,” Yunokawa said, explaining the company’s motive for targeting both domestic and overseas markets. “In my previous job (at Venture Link Inc.), I had an opportunity to travel to an emerging country and was shocked to find out that the local literacy rate then was lower than I had expected. That experience was the starting point,” he said. “I was especially shocked to learn that over 10% of Chinese and over 30% of Indians could not read. Levels of education were noticeably low especially among people in poor and low-income classes.

“Our company’s strength is in addressing low-achievement students, and so our curriculums proceed in gradual steps and provide careful explanation. That means they don’t require much tweaking to be used in emerging countries. We began offering the service in Sri Lanka in 2016 and we now operate also in Indonesia, India and the Philippines,” he said.

“Operating a business overseas can lead to creating social value in the region, and the size of the market is many times that of the Japanese market, so it was obvious to us that overseas expansion was essential for the company’s growth over the medium to long term,” he said. “The problem was, we were at the time preparing for listing our shares, partly because of the exit strategy of the fund. Expanding operations overseas would require a lot of funding. Luckily, we were able to receive assistance from JICA’s Feasibility Survey for SDGs Business (formerly the Preparatory Survey on BOP Business),” he said, referring to the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

“After we launched business overseas, we were again fortunate to receive support from the programs of public organizations, such as JETRO (the Japan External Trade Organization),” he said.

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.

In the global water business market, companies from France, China and the United States boast large sales. Japanese companies are increasingly making their presence felt by pushing their technological advantages and know-how. This article looks into the Japanese government’s efforts to help domestic businesses enter water infrastructure markets overseas, including its strategies and support programs.

In terms of sales, Japan’s Kubota Corp., Kurita Water Industries Ltd. and Toray Industries, Inc. have a strong presence globally. Companies such as these are addressing the demand for clean water, which is increasing with the growth of public awareness of the U.N. sustainable development goals (SDGs).

How important is the water business?

Water is required by nearly all industries, but there are still many people for whom access to safe drinking water and flush toilets is not readily available. Even in advanced economies, there have been times when industrial water for semiconductor production ran short due to the impact of climate change, including droughts. Damage and economic losses from increasingly severe water disasters, including earthquake-induced disruptions and floods, have become issues around the world. Developing and improving water infrastructure helps mitigate such situations and can be said to increase the significance of businesses’ role in society. One could say the development of the water business is contributing significantly to achieving a sustainable society.

What then is the Japanese government proposing in order to help Japanese companies enter water infrastructure markets overseas?

Ways of promoting Japan’s infrastructure systems overseas have been discussed by the Ministerial Meeting on Strategy relating Infrastructure Export and Economic Cooperation chaired by the chief cabinet secretary. The agenda of this meeting has included issues specific to certain countries or regions, as well as issues specific to or encompassing certain fields. In December 2020, the meeting formulated the “2025 Policy Program for Promotion of Overseas Infrastructure Systems,” which lays out new goals for the five-year period starting in 2021. The three key aims of the program are to achieve economic growth through carbon neutrality and digital transformation; contribute to achieving the SDGs in partner countries; and realize Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP).

In response to the program, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry published the “Survey Report on the Overseas Development of the Water Business: 10-Year Review of Overseas Development Measures and Future Direction of Development” in March. In this report, the ministry, which has been promoting Japanese water companies overseas since 2009, outlined anew the current situation of the global water business and suggested vision for the future in client countries and a policy direction that will allow for the promotion of both domestic companies and Japanese know-how overseas.

Amid calls for strategic development under a collaborative framework between the government and the private sector, the document laid out five scenarios for overseas promotion ranging from discovering water projects in target countries and completing them, to continuing such projects after completion.