Message from General Administrative Manager

Proactive Intellectual Property Activities Based on Purpose

Toshihiko Kobayashi
General Administrative Manager, Intellectual Property Division

Epson 25 Renewed Corporate Vision is positioned a strategy based on Epson's purpose. The aspirational goal of Epson 25 Renewed is achieving sustainability and enriching communities. We have also declared that Epson's purpose as a company is to contribute to society. We believe that we can contribute to society by using Epson's original core technologies, products, and services to produce innovation, and create and provide societal, environmental, and economic value to achieve our aspirational goal.

In response to this, our Intellectual Property Division has the following mission.

The Intellectual Property Division's Mission: Our mission is to support the sustained growth of corporate value by converting not only intellectual property rights into value, but also by converting intellectual property in the broader sense, including things such as brands and data, into value.

To achieve this mission, we in Seiko Epson's Intellectual Property Division are emphasizing proactive intellectual property (IP) activities.
So, rather than reactively using our intellectual property rights to block third parties from exercising rights, we proactively position ourselves to respond to potential future intellectual property issues by obtaining and actively using intellectual property rights in anticipation of future business.

In addition, we are concentrating on the following three points, as well as aiming to achieve level 5 of the IP activity value hierarchy shown on the left.

(1) Envision the future landscape from data analyzed using an IP landscape, which associates various information with intellectual property information, and proactively make proposals related to the creation of innovations.
(2) Provide strong contract support for collaboration with third parties to facilitate co-creation activities with startups, companies in other industries, and universities.
(3) Contribute to an increase in brand value by protecting technologies, designs, and names that are tied to brand identity through a mix of intellectual properties (patent rights, design rights, trademark rights, and copyrights).

By executing strategies based on these missions, we at Epson's Intellectual Property Division contribute to the achievement of Epson 25 Renewed and to our aspirational purpose of achieving sustainability and enriching communities.