Initiatives for Intellectual Property

Basic Approach

Toyota Boshoku recognizes that intellectual property is an important asset, and indispensable for global expansion and development of our business. Thus, in order to guarantee our business’ freedom and market predominance, we are promoting new inventions and discoveries, as well as relevant patent applications and acquisition activities.
We are also committed to respecting the intellectual property of others, and perform thorough investigation to ensure that neither our products nor our R&D infringes on any intellectual property.
In 2021 we established a KPI for the number of patent applications made, as a means to further the realization of the Toyota Boshoku group's materiality. Moving forward, we will continue to strive to further strengthen our intellectual property investments.

Initiatives System

Throughout our Japanese business we have appointed committee members with responsibility for intellectual property to each technology division in order to carry out our intellectual property initiatives more actively and efficiently. We are also building a system for coordinating discussion and information sharing regarding routine intellectual property activities.
Additionally, we are promoting cooperation across our entire global business, from our central Japanese business to R&D sites in the Americas, Asia and Oceania, China, Europe and Africa regions, as well as strengthening our global systems to effectively promote patent applications and acquisition activities.

Intellectual Property Activities

The Toyota Boshoku group makes practical use of patent information analysis obtained from various sources, such as IP landscaping,^* in reviewing the direction of our design development.
Additionally, we provide our management personnel with the result of comprehensive data analysis carried out on areas such as intellectual property, technology, services, markets, competitors, and so on. We have begun initiatives to make use of this information in our investment strategy.

• Defined in the Intellectual Property Skill Standards published by the Japan Patent Office. Consists of ascertaining trends in individual technologies and patents, and performing in-house analysis, competition analysis, market analysis, etc., integrating intellectual property information and market information.

Data Concerning Patents

Number of held patents

Number of patent applications