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Dutfield, Graham; Suthersanen, Uma --- "Japan and South Korea" [2007] ELECD 138; in Suthersanen, Uma; Dutfield, Graham; Chow, Boey Kit (eds), "Innovation Without Patents" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Innovation Without Patents

Editor(s): Suthersanen, Uma; Dutfield, Graham; Chow, Boey Kit

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845429591

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Japan and South Korea

Author(s): Dutfield, Graham; Suthersanen, Uma

Number of pages: 10

Extract:

7. Japan and South Korea
Graham Dutfield and Uma Suthersanen

7.1 ECONOMIC AND INNOVATION CLIMATE IN JAPAN
Does an expansion of the scope of patent rights induce more innovative effort?
An analysis was undertaken in 2000 gauging whether the 1987 Japanese patent
reforms had had any impact. The reforms had expanded the scope of patent:
however, the authors found no evidence of a statistically or economically sig-
nificant increase in either R&D spending or innovative output that could
plausibly be attributed to these reforms.1
In a more recent 2004 report, Japan ranks ninth in terms of competitiveness
though much of its R&D spending is by large corporations, rather than SMEs.2
Nevertheless, another report states that Japan languishes in the middle of the
OECD nations in terms of investment in knowledge creation, R&D by SMEs
and venture capital investment as a percentage of GDP; the same report gloomily
states that as Japan's technology gap with the United States widens, its edge
over China is shrinking.3 Does the shrinking SME contribution explain why
Japanese UM registration statistics are falling?


7.2 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The first patent law was the `Patent Monopoly Act' which was proclaimed
publicly in 1885. In addition to this, the UM law was enacted shortly after in
1905, in order to complement the patent system. The main aim of the UM sys-
tem was to protect less significant inventions and to foster technologies of small


1
Sakakibara, M., L. Branstetter and ...