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Abstract

re it is easy to change jobs. They are highly specialized, and their knowledge and skills are quickly evaluated beyond the company's boundaries. Of course, there is a greater need for programmers and engineers, and it is easier to find work.I would like to see an industry where people who work in the intellectual property industry can quickly raise children, pursue hobbies, and travel if they wish.It’s a job where you have to meet deadlines, but many deadlines are known in advance, and compared to things like server operations, it’s rare for me to be unable to return home due to troubleshooting.I do some parts of my work as a team, but I also do a lot of individual work, like writing, drawing, researching, and making comparisons in isolation, so it’s easy to make time for it. If you are a planned person, the rest is income.The dreams and hopes of the intellectual property industry lie with engineers. If we could create a world where engineering is valued relatively, and customers don’t buy good products and services (products) at a price that allows them to allocate compensation for technology development investment and human resources, then first of all, operating profit margins of active companies will be stable at 10% to 20%.Rather than increasing profit margins by reducing costs, the value provided by the product increases, allowing you to earn more than the cost. Genuine products rather than imitations can make this profit margin.When this operating profit margin exceeds 10%, the contribution of intellectual property rights becomes the source of that profit. When your operating profit margin is 3%, you can never say you are making money from intellectual property. Can you say that the strength of engineering is being demonstrated in a business with an operating profit margin of 3%?<h2 id="a128">Operating profit margin of companies and the intellectual property industry</h2>Patent rights do not have the power to increase business sales. Even if you obtain a great patent right, it does not mean that your sales will increase. The product's attractiveness determines sales, that is, the value it provides to the customer. Product sales will increase if the market for the value offered is large.Patent rights can protect your business’s profit margins. In other words, patent rights can legitimately deter the entry of imitators, so there is no need to lower prices concerning competitors, and prices can be set for customers. You can set prices while ensuring customer satisfaction while considering how much you have invested and will need for the next investment.From the intellectual property industry perspective, the clients of intellectual property departments and patent offices are businesses, and patent rights are an investment to protect business interests. Therefore, even if you invest in intellectual property for a non-profitable company, it will be unprofitable.Once again, the customers of the IP industry are businesses. It’s business profit. The source of the business’s profits is the value it provides to customers and the empathy they receive from them. The value provided to customers is the “effect of invention” from the perspective of invention. Customer empathy is “business trust or Goog will” from a trademark perspective.For the IP industry to develop, businesses must grow and contribute to the stability of their profits. As a result, compensation flows back into the intellectual property industry. Instead of thinking strategically about your relationships with your competitors, look for the value you have to offer your customers.<h2 id="f95c">What is the fair compensation that the IP industry should receive?</h2>Lawyers and tax accountants’ fees vary depending on the dispute amount and the company's size. However, when a patent application is filed and a patent right is obtained, the success fee is almost constant depending on the number of patents filed, and it does not take into account how much the patent right contributed to maintaining business profits. No one can do the math.A way of thinking that allows for calculations has emerged. Still, many people may have viewed this negatively based on the payer's mindset, such as compensation for employee inventions or the amount of damages. It is a great shame that our colleagues in the IP industry missed out on this opportunity to learn.If you can obtain a vital patent right for the core of a product that generates hundreds of millions of yen a year, you can dem

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and a success fee of several million yen. These are internal requests from the intellectual property department to business departments, requests from patent offices to companies, and requests from people working there to intellectual property departments and patent offices.However, the IP industry must learn more about business, management, and profit calculations. My lack of knowledge is always a challenge. The dreams and hopes of the intellectual property industry are firstly for engineers and then for the intellectual property industry to learn about management.<h2 id="2d3c">How can I do work that benefits my business interests?</h2>From my experience, I offer to focus on two perspectives: object orientation and design management. Let us break down these two concepts briefly.<h2 id="77f1">1 — Object-orientation</h2>In software engineering, there is a concept called object orientation. By encapsulating data and operations on the data and connecting to the outside world only through processes, the internals can be changed as long as the functions remain constant. It is a standardized abstraction mechanism.This is similar to how people in the intellectual property industry describe patent claims. Suppose you can systematically and neatly organize how the constituent elements of an invention (invention-specific matters) are related to each other (operations) and groups of functions and roles (classes). In that case, you can protect your invention at multiple levels.If invention specifying matter A is to do △ in response to OO, even if the types of OO are diverse, it only needs to lead to doing △, and the scope of rights will be expanded. In object-oriented terms, this is called diversity (polymorphism).In object-oriented software, minimizing the scope of modification in response to future changes is possible. In the case of patent claims, this leads to maintaining the effectiveness of the scope of rights in the face of future market changes. Both are directly linked to business profits. The engineering and intellectual property industries will be able to do a robust job in the future with an object-oriented way of thinking.<h2 id="68b7">2 — Design management</h2>I liked the Cabinet Office’s management design sheet, so I started promoting it, recommended it to many people, and worked with them to create it.In short, it is thinking that envisions the future. Think about who and what value you want to provide in the future. We want to gain sympathy from our customers for this value. The value provided is the effect of the invention, and the empathy gained is considered business trust and may be protected by intellectual property rights.As we interact with people of various sizes and industries, from small to medium-sized companies to listed companies, we often discover that our engineering capabilities alone cannot provide this value. We realize the need to partner with other companies.This is something that the intellectual property industry should support, and work will be created to maintain and grow business profits within the scope of business profits, such as matching patent information, joint development agreements, license agreements, and license audits.In common parlance, this is open innovation. Since this is an open innovation to provide value, we can expect ample business profits.Rather than starting from your own (past) strengths and continuing to supply products to a steadily shrinking market, it is much better to partner with other companies to create the value you want to provide in the future.The dreams and hopes of the intellectual property industry and the importance of support services for the smooth progress of open innovation can also be expected to increase.As a result, we can expect the quality of rights acquisition work to improve, which is more directly linked to business profits.<h2 id="3c40">Conclusions</h2>The intellectual property industry champions innovation and fairness to honor creativity and protect inventive minds.Its vision extends beyond profits, fostering a landscape where collaboration, ethical practices, and strategic thinking shape a world where innovation and integrity thrive for the betterment of society.As inventors, we can achieve our goals and realize our dreams with awareness of the process and pitfalls and a proactive approach with support from IP attorneys.Thank you for reading my story.</article></body>

Work | Engineering | Innovation

My Conversation with a Patent Attorney as an Engineer

As technical people, our dreams, hopes, and more

Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash

Engineering deliverables include products, customers, your company's growth, skill improvement for yourself and your team, and self-actualization. The intellectual property industry is concerned with inventions, the legal protection of product names and logos, and the design of physical appearance.

Large companies have intellectual property departments, and many people work there. Some people aim to work in the intellectual property industry since their student days and belong to the intellectual property department from the beginning, and others join the intellectual property department after working as developers.

In addition to my interest in technology and products, I don’t have to worry about language skills, and I would enjoy working with databases that target uncontrolled data sets. Please note that I have no experience in an intellectual property department, so I’m just imagining how fun it will be.

Here is a summary of my conversation with a patent attorney.

Inventions are the result of engineering and design. Inventions that meet certain conditions can be patented, and the invention can be used exclusively for a certain period of time. You can do it in-house or not, or you can license it out if requested. When it comes to rights called patent rights, it is possible to sell inventions stably.

This patent right is specially granted by the state to private individuals and differs from the privileges that individuals are naturally entitled to by birth. It is a very artificial and industrial policy, right?

There is a relatively white government agency called the Patent Office of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and the process of obtaining patent rights begins by submitting a document to this patent office. It is no good to take your invention to the patent office.

National qualification is required to file an application with the patent office for another person’s invention. The formal title of the staff is called a patent attorney.

In addition, in the intellectual property industry, some lawyers handle intellectual property rights, research companies conduct investigations, translation companies translate patent application documents, etc., and drawing companies cleanse drawings.

I wish the term “intellectual property strategy” would disappear, but some companies provide consulting on intellectual property and support transactions in intellectual property rights. Some valuationists, including myself, put a price on intellectual property rights.

Dream of the IP industry

The dream of the intellectual property industry is for the world’s intellectual property to be fairly valued, for those who unfairly imitate it to disappear, and for fun and exciting products to appear one after another.

At first, the rich people bought it as a luxury item, and thanks to the rich people’s purchase, manufacturing know-how grew, mass production effects appeared, and fun and exciting products were delivered to a wide range of ordinary people.

In a world entirely of imitators, no one will create new things on their own or do the work that steadily earns people’s trust, and the world will not improve in the long run. There are various social issues such as SDGs, ESG, and especially climate change, as well as human rights, privacy, and the lack of evaluations that determine life through machine learning.

We need engineering that creates future and reliable work to solve these social issues. The dream of the intellectual property industry is to develop and protect an economic environment in which people and organizations that create useful new things are rewarded fairly. This is also the ideal of patent law, antitrust law, copyright law, design law, trademark law, and unfair competition prevention law.

Hopes for the IP industry

The intellectual property industry has an atmosphere where it is easy to change jobs. They are highly specialized, and their knowledge and skills are quickly evaluated beyond the company's boundaries. Of course, there is a greater need for programmers and engineers, and it is easier to find work.

I would like to see an industry where people who work in the intellectual property industry can quickly raise children, pursue hobbies, and travel if they wish.

It’s a job where you have to meet deadlines, but many deadlines are known in advance, and compared to things like server operations, it’s rare for me to be unable to return home due to troubleshooting.

I do some parts of my work as a team, but I also do a lot of individual work, like writing, drawing, researching, and making comparisons in isolation, so it’s easy to make time for it. If you are a planned person, the rest is income.

The dreams and hopes of the intellectual property industry lie with engineers. If we could create a world where engineering is valued relatively, and customers don’t buy good products and services (products) at a price that allows them to allocate compensation for technology development investment and human resources, then first of all, operating profit margins of active companies will be stable at 10% to 20%.

Rather than increasing profit margins by reducing costs, the value provided by the product increases, allowing you to earn more than the cost. Genuine products rather than imitations can make this profit margin.

When this operating profit margin exceeds 10%, the contribution of intellectual property rights becomes the source of that profit. When your operating profit margin is 3%, you can never say you are making money from intellectual property. Can you say that the strength of engineering is being demonstrated in a business with an operating profit margin of 3%?

Operating profit margin of companies and the intellectual property industry

Patent rights do not have the power to increase business sales. Even if you obtain a great patent right, it does not mean that your sales will increase. The product's attractiveness determines sales, that is, the value it provides to the customer. Product sales will increase if the market for the value offered is large.

Patent rights can protect your business’s profit margins. In other words, patent rights can legitimately deter the entry of imitators, so there is no need to lower prices concerning competitors, and prices can be set for customers. You can set prices while ensuring customer satisfaction while considering how much you have invested and will need for the next investment.

From the intellectual property industry perspective, the clients of intellectual property departments and patent offices are businesses, and patent rights are an investment to protect business interests. Therefore, even if you invest in intellectual property for a non-profitable company, it will be unprofitable.

Once again, the customers of the IP industry are businesses. It’s business profit. The source of the business’s profits is the value it provides to customers and the empathy they receive from them. The value provided to customers is the “effect of invention” from the perspective of invention. Customer empathy is “business trust or Goog will” from a trademark perspective.

For the IP industry to develop, businesses must grow and contribute to the stability of their profits. As a result, compensation flows back into the intellectual property industry. Instead of thinking strategically about your relationships with your competitors, look for the value you have to offer your customers.

What is the fair compensation that the IP industry should receive?

Lawyers and tax accountants’ fees vary depending on the dispute amount and the company's size. However, when a patent application is filed and a patent right is obtained, the success fee is almost constant depending on the number of patents filed, and it does not take into account how much the patent right contributed to maintaining business profits. No one can do the math.

A way of thinking that allows for calculations has emerged. Still, many people may have viewed this negatively based on the payer's mindset, such as compensation for employee inventions or the amount of damages. It is a great shame that our colleagues in the IP industry missed out on this opportunity to learn.

If you can obtain a vital patent right for the core of a product that generates hundreds of millions of yen a year, you can demand a success fee of several million yen. These are internal requests from the intellectual property department to business departments, requests from patent offices to companies, and requests from people working there to intellectual property departments and patent offices.

However, the IP industry must learn more about business, management, and profit calculations. My lack of knowledge is always a challenge. The dreams and hopes of the intellectual property industry are firstly for engineers and then for the intellectual property industry to learn about management.

How can I do work that benefits my business interests?

From my experience, I offer to focus on two perspectives: object orientation and design management. Let us break down these two concepts briefly.

1 — Object-orientation

In software engineering, there is a concept called object orientation. By encapsulating data and operations on the data and connecting to the outside world only through processes, the internals can be changed as long as the functions remain constant. It is a standardized abstraction mechanism.

This is similar to how people in the intellectual property industry describe patent claims. Suppose you can systematically and neatly organize how the constituent elements of an invention (invention-specific matters) are related to each other (operations) and groups of functions and roles (classes). In that case, you can protect your invention at multiple levels.

If invention specifying matter A is to do △ in response to OO, even if the types of OO are diverse, it only needs to lead to doing △, and the scope of rights will be expanded. In object-oriented terms, this is called diversity (polymorphism).

In object-oriented software, minimizing the scope of modification in response to future changes is possible. In the case of patent claims, this leads to maintaining the effectiveness of the scope of rights in the face of future market changes. Both are directly linked to business profits. The engineering and intellectual property industries will be able to do a robust job in the future with an object-oriented way of thinking.

2 — Design management

I liked the Cabinet Office’s management design sheet, so I started promoting it, recommended it to many people, and worked with them to create it.

In short, it is thinking that envisions the future. Think about who and what value you want to provide in the future. We want to gain sympathy from our customers for this value. The value provided is the effect of the invention, and the empathy gained is considered business trust and may be protected by intellectual property rights.

As we interact with people of various sizes and industries, from small to medium-sized companies to listed companies, we often discover that our engineering capabilities alone cannot provide this value. We realize the need to partner with other companies.

This is something that the intellectual property industry should support, and work will be created to maintain and grow business profits within the scope of business profits, such as matching patent information, joint development agreements, license agreements, and license audits.

In common parlance, this is open innovation. Since this is an open innovation to provide value, we can expect ample business profits.

Rather than starting from your own (past) strengths and continuing to supply products to a steadily shrinking market, it is much better to partner with other companies to create the value you want to provide in the future.

The dreams and hopes of the intellectual property industry and the importance of support services for the smooth progress of open innovation can also be expected to increase.

As a result, we can expect the quality of rights acquisition work to improve, which is more directly linked to business profits.

Conclusions

The intellectual property industry champions innovation and fairness to honor creativity and protect inventive minds.

Its vision extends beyond profits, fostering a landscape where collaboration, ethical practices, and strategic thinking shape a world where innovation and integrity thrive for the betterment of society.

As inventors, we can achieve our goals and realize our dreams with awareness of the process and pitfalls and a proactive approach with support from IP attorneys.

Thank you for reading my story.