Introduction
It has been revealed that the Liberal Democratic Party’s Intellectual Property Strategy Research Commission has compiled a new draft proposal concerning Japan’s intellectual property strategy. The proposal calls for expanding public investment to more than 500 billion yen over the next five years in order to develop content fields such as anime, games, manga, music, and live-action video as growth industries.
In addition, the proposal includes the creation of a system requiring companies to disclose intellectual property in their annual securities reports, with the aim of linking patents, copyrights, brands, know-how, and other intellectual property to companies’ “earning power.” It also proposes measures such as international standardization, protection of rights in the AI era, anti-piracy measures, and legal reforms including the disgorgement of infringers’ profits. As such, the proposal is positioned not merely as cultural support or rights protection, but as a fairly broad industrial policy.
The government’s Intellectual Property Promotion Plan is formulated each year under the Basic Act on Intellectual Property and sets out the basic direction of government measures concerning the creation, protection, and utilization of intellectual property. The 2025 plan also identified key priorities such as the intellectual property system in the AI and digital era, international standardization strategy, and collaboration between content and regional revitalization. The latest proposal can be understood as pushing this policy direction further toward “investment” and “corporate value.”
The Focus of Intellectual Property Policy Is Shifting from “Protection” to “Monetization”
The most important point in the latest proposal is that it treats intellectual property not merely as something to be protected, but as capital that affects the earning power of companies and the nation.
Traditional intellectual property policy has tended to focus on how to obtain patent rights and copyrights and how to protect them from imitation and infringement. The latest proposal goes one step further by asking how intellectual property can be commercialized, monetized in overseas markets, and reflected in corporate value.
This is also a policy response to the long-standing challenge faced by Japanese companies: “winning in technology but losing in business.” Even if a company has excellent technology or attractive content, if it is weak in standardization, contracts, distribution, licensing, and communication with capital markets, the final profits may end up flowing to foreign companies or platforms.
In that sense, the latest proposal elevates intellectual property from “an object of management by R&D or legal departments” to “management strategy itself.”
The Meaning of 500 Billion Yen in Content Investment
Anime, games, manga, music, and video are no longer peripheral cultural industries. As reported in the news, the domestic market has grown to 13.3 trillion yen, while overseas sales have also reached 5.8 trillion yen. These fields are among the few areas in which Japan can possess international competitiveness.
However, simply increasing the number of works produced is not enough to grow the content industry. A comprehensive foundation is required, including human resource development at production sites, working conditions, financing, overseas distribution, contract negotiations, translation and localization, fan community building, and anti-piracy measures.
Therefore, what matters is not only the size of the 500 billion yen figure, but where that money will flow. The key questions are whether it will actually be returned to production companies and creators, whether it will strengthen rights clearance and contract negotiation capabilities for overseas expansion, and whether it will reach regional and small-to-medium-sized production entities.
If public investment ends as mere event support or temporary promotion, it will not strengthen the industrial foundation. What is needed is a design that simultaneously cultivates the power to create works and the power to continuously recover profits from those works.
Intellectual Property Disclosure in Annual Securities Reports Could Change Corporate Management
The proposed system requiring intellectual property disclosure in annual securities reports also carries significant meaning.
Intellectual property is an important intangible asset that affects a company’s future earnings. However, financial statements alone do not make it easy to see what kinds of patents, brands, copyrighted works, data, and know-how a company owns, or how it monetizes them.
If intellectual property disclosure is institutionalized, companies will need to explain not only “what intellectual property they possess,” but also “which businesses they use that intellectual property in, which markets they monetize it in, and how they maintain competitive advantage.”
This is also important for investors. When assessing corporate value, it will become easier to evaluate not only factories and facilities, but also patent portfolios, brand strength, content IP, standard-essential patents, data assets, and other intangible assets. In its 2025 Intellectual Property Promotion Plan, the Cabinet Office also set a goal of raising the share of intangible assets in the market capitalization of the Nikkei 225 to 50% or more by 2035.
At the same time, there are points that require caution. If the disclosure system merely increases formalistic descriptions, a company’s intellectual property strategy will not become visible. What matters is not the number of rights held, but their connection to business. The essence lies not in how many patents a company owns, but in whether it can explain how those patents contribute to revenue, barriers to entry, standardization, licensing, and partnership strategy.
International Standardization Is a Policy for “Turning Technology into Markets”
The fact that the proposal emphasizes international standardization should also not be overlooked.
International standards are not merely technical specifications; they are the rules of the market. No matter how excellent a technology may be, if it is not incorporated into international standards, it becomes difficult to take the lead in global markets. Conversely, if technologies in which domestic companies have strengths become standardized, they gain advantages in product deployment, licensing, supply chains, and international negotiations.
In 2025, the government also formulated a new international standardization strategy for the first time in 19 years, setting out measures such as establishing a public-private command function and strengthening international standardization activities in important fields. The fact that the latest proposal refers to a new post called a “Standardization Strategy Officer” appears to be aimed at further clarifying that command function.
There are examples, such as QR codes, of Japanese technologies becoming global standards. However, rather than leaving such outcomes to accidental success, standardization, patents, commercialization, and overseas expansion must be designed in an integrated manner from the early stages.
Standardization is not the job of engineers alone. It is an area where legal affairs, intellectual property, management, diplomacy, and industrial policy intersect. The extent to which the government can provide effective support in this area will affect Japan’s industrial competitiveness.
Intellectual Property Protection in the AI Era Is Not a Question of “Regulation or Promotion,” but of Institutional Design
With the spread of generative AI, intellectual property policy has entered an even more difficult phase.
AI learning, generation, imitation, piracy distribution, and unauthorized use of characters may be difficult to address through the traditional copyright system alone. At the same time, if the use of AI is excessively discouraged, the possibilities for new creation and R&D may also be narrowed.
For this reason, intellectual property policy in the AI era should not be framed as a simple conflict between “regulating AI” and “promoting AI.” The focus should be on how to balance fair returns to creators with the freedom to use technology. The Cabinet Office has also indicated a direction of pursuing both technological progress in AI and the appropriate protection of intellectual property rights through a combination of law, technology, and contracts.
The latest proposal’s references to expanding the budget for anti-piracy measures and developing laws to deprive infringers of their profits are important from the perspective of enhancing the effectiveness of rights protection. In a market where infringement becomes profitable, legitimate creators and companies cannot obtain sufficient returns.
However, if rights protection is strengthened, attention must also be paid to chilling effects. If the balance with derivative works, research use, educational use, AI development, platform operation, and similar activities is lost, the base of creative activity may instead be narrowed. Effective protection and the development of a healthy environment for use must be pursued simultaneously.
What Is Being Tested Is the Ability to “Manage Intellectual Property”
Even if the latest proposal is realized, systems alone will not produce results. What will ultimately be tested is whether Japan has the people and organizations capable of connecting intellectual property to management.
For content companies, it is necessary to design in which countries, through which media, for what periods, and under what conditions the rights to works will be deployed. For technology companies, strategies that take patents, standardization, licensing, and overseas markets into account are required from the R&D stage. For listed companies, the ability to explain to investors how intellectual property creates corporate value will be required.
In other words, intellectual property departments of the future will no longer be departments that merely process applications and contracts. They must become departments that work in coordination with corporate planning, business development, finance, investor relations, and overseas strategy.
We are entering an era in which companies are evaluated not for merely “possessing” intellectual property, but for “using it to earn.”
Conclusion
The latest draft proposal by the Liberal Democratic Party’s Intellectual Property Strategy Research Commission significantly expands the scope of intellectual property policy. Public investment of around 500 billion yen in the content industry, intellectual property disclosure in annual securities reports, strengthening the command function for international standardization, rights protection in the AI era, and enhanced anti-piracy measures are all directly linked to Japan’s growth strategy.
What is especially important is the attempt to transform intellectual property from something to be “protected” into something to “earn with.” Japan has a wide variety of intellectual property, including technologies, works, brands, characters, craftsmanship, and regional resources. However, the mechanisms for monetizing these assets in global markets and linking them to corporate value are still insufficient.
Whether the latest proposal will be effective depends not on the budget amount itself, but on whether investment, disclosure, standardization, rights protection, and human resource development can be advanced in an integrated manner.
Intellectual property strategy is no longer a theme only for specialists. It has become a central theme connecting corporate management, industrial policy, cultural policy, AI policy, and economic security. Whether Japan can change the structure of “winning in technology but losing in business” depends on how seriously it treats intellectual property as a management resource.