Intellectual Property Activities

We believe that intellectual property activities are essential in supporting DNP's wide-ranging business activities from the ground up and for differentiating DNP from its competitors. Since the superiority of intellectual property greatly affects DNP's business potential, we conduct intellectual property activities with a strong team so that we can acquire high-quality patents.

For strategic acquisition of intellectual property

(1) Understanding the intellectual property that underpins products and services that gain top market share

DNP views intellectual property as one of the essential assets for value creation. Especially for products and services that have gained top market share in Japan and internationally, our patent network of core and peripheral technologies has a significant effect on business development.

(2) Setting focus businesses and strategic acquisition of intellectual property

We will strategically build a stronger business portfolio by setting focused businesses with high profitability and market growth potential. To this end, we are promoting open innovation and focusing on the strategic acquisition of intellectual property to ensure the superiority of our position.

(3) Integrating three strategies to create value

We will establish business models exploiting intellectual property for our focus businesses through the value creation process by integrating our business strategy, development strategy and intellectual property strategy. We plan scenarios for creating value in the long term and strengthen internal and external collaboration.

(4) Concentrating resources and developing human resources

We will concentrate our various resources, including intellectual property, on our focus businesses. We will endeavor to develop human resources who are well versed in business, technologies, R&D and intellectual property, and we will encourage a culture of managing risk and respecting the rights of others.

(5) Strengthening governance and implementing strategies

Intellectual property policies and the state of progress will be shared with management and other personnel with different responsibilities, and will be utilized in management decision-making while ensuring effective governance. At the same time, we will further strengthen cooperation between each business unit and the intellectual property department to accelerate the expansion of our focus businesses.

Creating long-term value by strengthening and expanding intellectual capital

Outline of activities

Business activity support

We create intellectual property with significant business value by formulating application rights acquisition strategies linked to business policies.
In addition, we actively support business activities by enhancing our patent portfolio to gain advantages for our businesses and effectively utilize the rights obtained through the patents.

Education and awareness regarding intellectual property

Respecting the rights of others and creating a corporate culture that complies with intellectual property laws and regulations

In order to create a corporate culture that respects the rights of others as well as our own and complies with intellectual property laws and regulations, we provide all employees with intellectual property education appropriate to their job level.
We also provide more specialized training for our planning and development departments, which have more opportunities to handle intellectual property.

Cooperation with clients and society

We provide legal support to client companies through proposals that take into account the legal aspects of intellectual property (e.g., copyrights, premiums and trademarks).
We help raise our standing in the industry by dispatching committee members to various intellectual property-related organizations (Japan Intellectual Property Association, Japan Federation of Printing Industries, etc.) and actively making proposals.

Promotion structure

To proactively support a broad range of its business activities, we have established an integrated organization comprised of departments that facilitate the intellectual property activities of each business unit, alongside departments that handle intellectual property-related contracts and legal support.

Number of patents held

Number of patents held in Japan

Expansion of patents related to "Focus Businesses"

The DNP Group chooses its focus businesses by carefully examining the environmental, social and economic value that each business generates, taking into account the growth potential and profitability of domestic and overseas markets. In the mid-term management plan, we are concentrating our management resources on businesses related to IoT and next-generation communications, data distribution, mobility and the environment. In terms of acquiring and expanding our intellectual property, we will further increase our patent holdings in these four priority areas.

Patents held: 11,726
Patents related to our focus businesses: 6,281
・IoT and next-generation communications-related: 2,355
・Data distribution-related: 2,041
・Mobility-related: 828
・Environment-related: 1,057
(As of March 31, 2022)