Having lost its edge as a mass-production base, Japan's future economic prosperity depends on its innovativeness in offering high value-added products and services.
Along with efficient research and development, the strategic use of known technologies holds the key for Japanese firms to surpass their foreign rivals and come out on top in the global market.
With such an outlook, the government embarked on a policy favoring patent holders in the late 1990s, emulating a policy in the United States initiated in the 1980s that successfully helped reinforce the then-ailing U.S. economy.