Japan, as is well known, is one of the most highly capable countries of innovation, especially in the R&D field.
Today for “Patents world” we include a video developed by the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) about a prolific inventor who come right from Japan: Katsushige Nakamura, president of Mitaka Kohk, a small company with just 50 employees specialized in high-precision measurement tools.
Katsushige Nakamura, inventor, Japan from WIPO on Vimeo.
As Mr Nakamura says, the company started in the spacial field, (has developed a succession of innovative astronomical observation devices, culminating in the development of a special camera that was used by NASA on board the Space Shuttle), moved on medical technology (enjoys a 50% share of the market for neurosurgical microscopes) and finally on solar instruments.
Besides the camera technology used by the NASA, one of the most important achievement for the company was the development of the Space Pointer Cygnus neurosurgical microscope. Nakamura assures the idea behind the microscopes was simple:“It’s based on the principle of parallelograms, which is simple enough for a grade school kid to understand.”
Today he’s working in technology for use in fluorescence microscopes that light up cancerous growths in three dimensions, and also technologies that can contribute to solar storage electricity generation.
He has invented a solar-powered system which generates electricity and water. “I want to make the earth’s deserts green”: this is the dream of this visionary inventor.
The fundamental principal to create innovations and to protect them is the patenting system. In fact, in one year he created around 50 patents, but is not the number of patents that matters, but its outstanding quality. For Mr Nakamura, the competition is all about ideas. Mitaka Kohk is “a company if ideas”, and its success is due to the strategic use of the numerous patents which allows Mr Nakamura to build advantageous trade partnerships.
His strategy is to acquire more patents and continue to increase the company’s intellectual property reserves.
If you are curious, you can see the patent “Sunlight collecting system”.
