ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the millennium, the Japanese government urged that “in the 21st century, Japan needs to discover new economic opportunities by attaching further importance to intellectual property” (METI 2002). In response to the stagnation in the Japanese economy, as well as the increasing international competitiveness in business activities, it became necessary to seek a new model for growth, such as the creation of high-value-added intangibles assets or intellectual capital/intellectual property (IC/IP). The interest in IC was expressed by the Ministry of Trade and Industry in 2004 (METI 2004, 94–98) and summarized by Johanson et al. 2006:
Becoming a nation that quests for sustained growth of its economy and society through vigorous promotion of creation, protection and exploitation of intellectual property, namely, a “nation built on intellectual property”, is an urgent goal for Japan to strengthen its industrial competitiveness.
There is a need to enhance dramatically the exploitation of intellectual property, as well as its creation and protection. It is important to recognize the intellectual property strategy as the center of the management strategy, called “intellectual property-backed management”, in the trinity of business strategy, R&D strategy, and intellectual property strategy.
It is important that an environment is constructed that permits companies that practice “intellectual property-backed management” to receive fair valuation in the capital market while they strive to achieve sustained growth.
For the mutual understanding between companies and capital markets about the information disclosure of companies’ “intellectual property-backed management”, especially about the information of patent and R&D, intellectual property information disclosure will be required[; the] Guideline for Intellectual Property Information Disclosure (GIPID) is [the] basic guideline. (p. 475)
