Panasonic Corporation, a major appliance company, announced it would host an online collaborative project informational meeting on September 14, 2020. Its goal is to find collaborative partners to develop and utilize some of its own technologies. Panasonic is working with Chizaizukan (“IP picture-guide”) to present its ideas with manga-like pictures depicting some suggested ways partners could work with Panasonic and use its technologies.
For example, Chizaizukan suggests that its IP would help companies develop AI sensors to determine freshness of fish and the best use for each one (sashimi-fried-stewed), recognize visual cues to switch off lights, and more. It lists various possible development and business avenues, to give people in many fields ideas of how they could build off of Panasonic’s IP resources.
This project is well-designed to attract interest in partnering with major technological powerhouses to utilize dormant IP. Japan’s businesses are certainly looking more and more to open innovation, licensing, and academia-industry partnerships than, say, twenty years ago when the game was more about having powerful IP to repel competitors in one’s own field.
Sources
[1] Chizaizukan. “【共創プロジェクト】未来実装パートナーを求める7つの知財 [Collaborative project; 7 IPs seeking future implementation partners].” https://chizaizukan.com/special/panasonic_lights Accessed September 10, 2020.
[2] Panasonic. “パナソニックと知財図鑑が知財を活用した「未来実装パートナー」の募集を開始。パートナーとの共創を通じ、新たな価値創出を推進。[Panasonic and Chizaizukan begin seeking ‘future implementation partners’ using IP; through partnering creation, promote new value creation].” https://news.panasonic.com/jp/topics/203916.html September 2, 2020. Accessed September 10, 2020.
Header image: from Panasonic/Chizaizukan.
