Co-establishment of Patent Search Company by Pasona and Panasonic

Pasona Inc., one of the biggest Japanese human resource companies, and Panasonic Corporation, a major comprehensive electronic equipment manufacturer, jointly established a new survey company for searching competing patents or prior art all over the world this April.

Pasona is registered as the first prior art searching agency at the Japan Patent Office in the human resource business. It has approximately 250 searching staffs. Panasonic also had the fourth-largest number of applications worldwide in terms of number of international patent applications in 2014.

The newly-established company is going to deal with patent searches of Japanese SMEs that are accelerating overseas advances, and it is estimated that about 300 companies will utilize the services of the established company in the first three years.

(Reported by Yoko MIYAMOTO, Japanese Patent Attorney)