As a 'Nation built on intellectual property' is declared in 2002, Japan has established an IP system providing the enforcement of the 'Basic Law of intellectual property' with more than 50 amendments about IP-related laws, and the creation of the 'Hea...
As a 'Nation built on intellectual property' is declared in 2002, Japan has established an IP system providing the enforcement of the 'Basic Law of intellectual property' with more than 50 amendments about IP-related laws, and the creation of the 'Headquarters of Intellectual Property' in Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet.
In the past 10 years, the growing influence of emerging economies like China, the globalization of businesses, the diversification of media content, which are the premise of a novel intellectual property policy environment is changing rapidly.
In order to rebuild an intellectual property policy, it is acknowledged that the current policy needs to be reviewed as a whole. On June 7, 2013, the Headquarters of Intellectual Property announced the introduction of the 'Intellectual Property Basic policy' and of the 'IP Vision' which will be pivotal schemes for 10 years from now.
According to the 'IP Vision', there are 4 major pillars: 1) Building a global intellectual property system to strengthen industrial competitiveness, 2) Enhancing support of intellectual property management for venture enterprise, small and medium-sized enterprises, 3) Legal environment maintenance as far as the digital network society is concerned, and 4) Strengthening the focus on the software and media contents.
In this paper, I will illustrate the current state of Japan's copyright policy focusing on pillars 3) and 4) of the "IP Vision", which show the new direction of the copyright law system.