The government has decided to hand back intellectual property rights to private- sector researchers who conducted research and development on its behalf, Trade Minister Kaoru Yosano told biotechnology leaders Wednesday.
It is hoped the rights transfers will result in a strengthening of the nation's industrial competitiveness on the order of that experienced by the United States in the 1980s, according to officials of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.
Yosano made the pledge at a meeting between his Cabinet colleagues and nine representatives of the biotechnology industry, including Health and Welfare Minister Sohei Miyashita and Shoichi Nakagawa, minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, the officials said.