Intellectual Property Initiatives

Basic Principles

Chiyoda protects our intellectual property (IP) to fuels our position ahead of the competition. We also implement rigorous measures to protect the IP of others to avoid infringements.

Chiyoda's Technology Landscape

Chiyoda's IP is our technical prowess, and we have established 'Chiyoda's Technology Landscape' to transform tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge and map IP for value creation. As an integrated engineering company, we socially implement systems that combine our own internal technologies and external technologies owned by others to accumulate IP in the form of technological expertise and technology packages.

We classify our IP into three categories: ① Own Technology (proprietary technology), ② Key Capability (technology owned by others, mastered through licensing agreements etc) and ③ Key Technology (technologies owned by others). We map these categories across our business domains into 'Chiyoda's Technology Landscape', shared within Chiyoda to promote value creation, such as proposing solutions to customers, building co-creation schemes with others and formulating technology development strategies.

Organizational Structure

The IP Section is part of the Corporate Planning Department, which consolidates our company-wide business and technology strategies. The Section formulates and implements IP strategy aligned with business and technology strategies.

The IP Section visualizes and organizes our IP, and that of others, related to new businesses, using methods such as IP landscaping to identify technologies for development and partnering.

The IP Section also collaborates with business and technology divisions to extract inventions and organize our patent portfolio and implements stringent and comprehensive IP investigations prior to developing a new business to mitigate the risk of infringing the IP rights of others. The Section also conducts IP Due Diligence (IP DD) for the Value Innovation Department prior to investing in start-up companies and conducts IP strategy development for new businesses adopted in the in-house entrepreneurship program.

Patent Portfolio

Chiyoda conducts business worldwide and applies for patents across the globe, currently holding patents in 64 countries and regions.

Countries and Regions in which Chiyoda Holds Patents (as of May 2024)

Percentage of Filed Patent Applications Related to New / Existing Businesses in Four-year Periods