Initiatives Related to Intellectual Property

The Daicel Group respects intellectual property rights held by third parties, recognizes that the intellectual property rights held by the Company (patent rights, utility model rights, trademark rights, design rights, etc.) are important assets, and strives to maintain and protect those rights.

With the basic philosophy of remaining a company that makes lives better by co-creating value, the Daicel Group invests in intellectual property and other intangible assets in order to continue providing value. At the same time, we remain committed to meeting the needs of society while sharing a philosophy that transcends the limitations of companies and industries.

In the Intellectual Property Center, under the slogan of "Proactive IP," we are engaged in intellectual property activities led by an intellectual property activity team consisting of (1) Business and Planning Divisions, (2) the Research & Development Division, and (3) the Intellectual Property Center. By "creating" and "exploiting" intellectual properties, we support our monozukuri manufacturing, and by "combining" intellectual properties, we promote innovations that lead to new business creation, enhance Daicel's brand power, and bolster business of the Daicel Group. As clarified in Daicel's "Accelerate 2025" Mid-term Management Strategy, along with "Research" and "Development," we will strengthen intellectual property activities as one of the means to accelerate "Innovation and Business Development."

Under the process of developing new businesses or products, Daicel conducts an analysis and confirmation of patents using our proprietary system, the Patent Analysis and Confirmation System (PACS). Through this process, we confirm that our products do not infringe on any third party intellectual property rights and ensure efficient and reliable promotion of the new technological developments that drive the success of the Company.

In 2019, Daicel's Intellectual Property Center established a dedicated team to promote IP Landscape (IPL), and in 2022 this IPL team was reorganized to incorporate all our IP staff and positioned our IPL as a fundamental part of all Daicel's intellectual property activities. By IPL, we mean "to tap into all available information, not only intellectual property but also technologies, papers, markets, companies, politics, laws, etc. so that we can visualize the situation in which Daicel's management, business, and research are placed, and plot a path to ensure these activities are successful." Based on this idea, we view an IPL as "a compass for management, business, and research" and promoting our activities.

In addition, since these activities cannot be achieved by the Intellectual Property Center alone, we are proceeding in close cooperation with relevant divisions on individual specific R&D themes and business planning themes. Now that the awareness of our IPL is growing within our company, this IPL is beginning to play a role in the decision-making of each business unit. We are making efforts every day so that our IPL can help open doors to the future of Daicel.

We are working to improve the intellectual property literacy of our engineers through a human resources development program implemented in collaboration between the Intellectual Property Center and Personnel Group.

The Daicel Group has registered its environment-related technologies with "WIPO GREEN," an environment-related technology exchange platform operated by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which is a specialized agency of the United Nations, aiming to contribute to "Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)." Having been a "partner" in WIPO GREEN since April 2020, Daicel's initiatives are also introduced on the following page of the Patent Office's website.

A quantification method of sparkle phenomenon on displays*, which was jointly developed with Komatsu NTC Ltd., was adopted as Japan Industrial Standards (JIS) under the title of "Determination of magnitude of display sparkle" (JIS C 1006) on December 20, 2019.

The method and equipment to numerically calculate sparkle have been patented as "Equipment and Method of Determining Sparkle" (JP Patent No. 6294904), and Daicel and Komatsu have announced they will license this patent on reasonable and non-discriminatory ("RAND") terms.

In 2018, Daicel received the Commissioner of the Patent Office Awards at the "Intellectual Property Achievement Awards" organized by the Japan Patent Office of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which recognizes individuals and companies that have contributed to the development of Japan's intellectual property rights system.

The award recognized that [1] business, research & development, and intellectual property divisions are working together, [2] the optical resolution device (chiral separation) for pharmaceutical development, which was commercialized through industry-academia collaboration, enjoys the largest share of the business market thanks to the use of related intellectual properties, and [3] Daicel is helping to improve the productivity of domestic industries and strengthen their international competitiveness by licensing the "Intellectual Integrated Production System" called the "Daicel Way."

In 2018, Daicel received the 15th Industrial Achievement Award from the Intellectual Property Association of Japan, which honors corporations for their outstanding achievements in intellectual property activities.

The award recognizes Daicel's efforts to promote collaboration among business, R&D, and intellectual property divisions, and for proposing this model to industry. Among others, the model was highly evaluated because it can be applied regardless of company size and it also has the potential to be applied in industry-academia collaboration.

Daicel has been awarded Local Commendations for Invention by the Japan Institute of Invention and Innovation for four straight years since 2017.