Nihon Superior, a supplier of advanced soldering materials to the global market is honored to report that its president, Tetsuro Nishimura was invited to speak at a symposium on intellectual property strategies held at the Osaka International Conventions Center on February 22, 2012. The theme of the symposium, which was sponsored by the Japan Patent Office and the Kansai Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry, was “Strategies for Utilization of Intellectual Property”. The message was that companies should recognize the value their intellectual property and take advantage of it to grow their business.

This symposium was particularly directed at small to medium sized Japanese companies that are suffering the consequences of globalization and a strong yen. The objective was to encourage companies to take advantage of government programs designed to help maximize the benefit that can be derived from intellectual property with reports of successes by speakers from industry, government and academia. The symposium attracted an audience of 300 people that included the chief executives and intellectual property managers of small and medium-sized enterprises.

After the opening speech there was a series of keynote presentations by the Japan Patent Office and major corporations such as Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. They spoke on current intellectual property issues in Japan and the possibility of collaboration on intellectual property between small and medium-sized enterprises and major corporations.
Nihon Superior was one of several small and medium-sized companies that were introduced as examples of enterprises that are successfully using intellectual property to speak about their strategies.
In his presentation the Nihon Superior president Tetsuro Nishimura described his development of the unique lead-free solder “SN100C®” detailing his strategy in patenting, branding and marketing this invention.
He explained that rather than just protecting his intellectual property he had used his patent as the basis for a global business earning royalty from targeted licensing to overseas companies. He acknowledged the difficulty of dealing with foreigners emphasizing the importance of developing the necessary communication skills but said that small to medium-sized Japanese companies had no choice but to expand their business overseas if they were to survive in the changing market. He also spoke of the importance of his company’s major investment in advanced research in the creation of new intellectual property citing examples of joint research at overseas universities and research organizations.

A panel of six experts then discussed the concept of intellectual property and the problems faced in its exploitation. Those from industry acknowledged the value of intellectual property but expressed concern about the obstacles created by government regulations. Government representatives and patent attorneys offered advice on dealing with those issues and an assurance of support for industry.
Mr Nishimura made the point that it is important for a company to earn money from their intellectual property quickly to recover the cost of patenting. And he said that when submitting an application for a patent it useful to illustrate the essential intellectual property by the use of photographs and figures so that the examiner can easily understand the nature of the claims and process it quickly. He encouraged people to make use of the government services to determine whether their development might have been already patented by someone else. Mr Nishimura concluded with a challenge to his small to medium-sized company colleagues to use their intellectual property boldly to expand their business into the global market.