Governance
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (IP)
To differentiate our company from competitors, we encourage the acquisition of IP rights and ensure that we respect and never infringe the IP rights of other companies. To make the most of our IP as our operations expand across the globe, KOKUYO regularly exchanges information with overseas subsidiaries, improving coordination in our global IP strategy.
Policy
KOKUYO Group Code of Conduct
Recognizing that IP is an important current and future corporate asset, we appropriately manage, protect, and utilize our IP and respect the IP rights of others.
KOKUYO Group Code of Conduct 6: Safeguarding KOKUYO Group assets, respecting intellectual property
We appropriately manage, safeguard, and use KOKUYO Group’s assets, tangible and intangible, and avoid infringing the intellectual property of others.
Commentary
- All KOKUYO Group assets, whether tangible and intangible, must be managed in accordance with internal rules to protect them from loss, theft, or unauthorized disclosure. Only use such assets for official business purposes. Never take such assets outside the workplace, or give them to a third party, without authorization.
- Always respect, never infringe, the intellectual property (IP) rights of others. To avoid the risk that a new product or technology infringes IP rights and causes litigation, due diligence must be taken at every step from research & development, through to design, production, and sales.
- Never improperly access or use another person’s confidential information.
- KOKUYO Group Code of Conduct*
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- *Japanese Only
Processes in Place
Management and Operational Structure
The Risk Management Division’s legal department has a unit devoted to managing intellectual property (IP) for our subsidiaries in Japan and overseas. The unit works to standardize and unify the use of, and strategies concerning, intellectual property across KOKUYO Group. The unit’s duties include managing procedures for obtaining protections for our IP (inventions, designs, and trademarks), conducting preliminary surveys to ensure that we avoid violating the IP rights of others, and routine monitoring rival products to check for potential violations of our own IP rights. Should a dispute occur, the unit will coordinate with the management to enable a swift and satisfactory resolution.
International Coordination in IP
We are working to make the most of our IP as our operations expand across the globe. Our corporate headquarters in Japan and overseas subsidiaries hold regular intellectual property meetings to exchange information and take anti-counterfeiting measures in order to better collaborate on our global intellectual property strategy.
Working with External Partners
As a member of the International Intellectual Property Protection Forum (IIPPF), which works to resolve the problem of overseas intellectual property infringement by taking aim at counterfeiting and piracy, we meet to exchange opinions with other companies and e-commerce operators around the world.
Actions
- Anti-counterfeiting Measures
- Protection and Legal Compliance of Intellectual Property Rights
- Promotion of Creation and Utilization of Intellectual Property Rights
Anti-counterfeiting Measures
We monitor domestic and overseas markets as well as e-commerce websites and other websites and take measures against products that infringe the KOKUYO Group’s rights. Measures include sending warning letters to manufacturers and requesting platformers to remove such products from their sites. For cases outside Japan, we take legal measures (such as seeking injunctions or filing lawsuits) against factories that make counterfeit products and against wholesalers dealing in such. We will continue to take a firm stance against counterfeiting wherever in the world we find it.
After discovering that counterfeit products were being sold on an e-commerce site in China, we located the factory manufacturing the products. An injunction was issued against the factory in February 2022. Authorities confiscated 248 Hacokabe and 681 Nemunemu counterfeits. The manufacturer was later fined. Information about our anti-counterfeiting activities is posted on the official WeChat account of our local subsidiary.
Protection and Legal Compliance of Intellectual Property Rights
The KOKUYO Group Code of Conduct stipulates that we respect the intellectual property rights of others while the intellectual property unit establishes and operates the system for research, analysis, and close investigation to prevent and avoid the violation of rights held by others. In addition, awareness-raising activities for respecting the intellectual property rights of others and improving awareness of legal compliance are conducted for development departments through training as the necessity arises and as part of daily work.
Promotion of Creation and Utilization of Intellectual Property Rights
The intellectual property unit and development departments work closely from the early stage of development to increase the superiority of the products in the market and focus on creating and discovering inventions that contribute to differentiation from competitors’ products. In compliance with Article 35 of the Patent Act, we have incorporated into our internal rules a system that incentivizes inventions that will increase customer satisfaction and support our business success.