An Indispensable Armament for a Success

-From a Smartphone to an Asteroid Explorer

What is intellectual property?

To put it shortly, it is the product of human intellectual activities, such as inventions (patents), ideas, designs, trademarks, and trade secrets.

he Nobel Prize in Chemistry in Japan’s new Reiwa Year 1 was awarded to Asahi Kasei Corporation Honorary Fellow Dr. Akira Yoshino, a Japanese, jointly with two U.S. researchers, for their achievements in lithium-ion battery research and development.

At the time of presenting the Prize, the Nobel Prize selecting committee chairperson stated, "Although Dr. Yoshino did not publish a paper on his results, the committee took his published ‘Patents into account’. That time has come”.

The published patent documents had passed strict examination in Japan on, for example, novelty, unobviousness, and satisfaction of disclosure requirements. Not only were Dr. Yoshino’s lithium-ion battery patents winners in the technical development race, they have also been commercialized and widely applied in the world around us, such as in smartphones, EVs, high performance submarines, and the Hayabusa 2 asteroid explorer.

Intellectual property has thus come to function as an indispensable armament for achieving success in many aspects of industry in society.