Despite strong interest, barriers to cross border patent transactions remain in Japan

As the costs of maintaining large patent portfolios have risen, Japanese companies have shown increasing interest in monetizing their portfolios. Indeed, Japanese companies have been active for years in licensing and cross-licensing their patents. But generally only a small proportion of any patent portfolio is generally suitable for licensing. A much larger share of the portfolio is usually suitable for selling.

However, Japanese companies have been slow to engage in patent sales. The main barriers to selling patents are:
- A shortage of resources in intellectual property departments
- Competing agendas within the organization
- Concern about broader business risk
- Lack of patent sale transaction experience
- Cultural barriers to concluding cross-border deals

Overcoming these barriers is the key to doing successful deals

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