Intellectual property

Action Guidelines for Intellectual Property Activities

Further enhance corporate value by conducting intellectual property activities aligned with the product life cycle (PLC) to promote business creation and growth.
Honor intellectual property rights of third parties.
Comply with laws and regulations regarding intellectual property in individual countries.

Intellectual Property Activities Aligned with Business Strategy

Our group is pursuing a mid- to long-term management strategy focused on further strengthening our internal combustion engine (ICE) business, reforming and strengthening our management foundation, and creating new business pillars centered on our core assets. Intellectual property activities are also crucial to this management strategy, and we are promoting various initiatives accordingly.

Automotive components
We will continue to secure a competitive advantage and maximize profitability through IP mix activities that protect our technologies and expertise in multiple aspects.
Component solutions
By integrating IP strategy into the early stages of business strategy planning, we are able to create IP that strengthens business competitiveness in close collaboration with the development departments. We contribute to enhancing business competitiveness by constructing patent networks in accordance with the IP strategy
Strengthening governance systems
We are strengthening governance by reporting the results of reviews of IP activities at each site annually to the responsible executive regarding IP activities across all Group companies domestically and internationally.
Organizational system
We will establish a new IP strategy formulation capability within the management of technology departments to bolster the formulation and promotion of IP strategies integrated with our overall business strategy while collaborating with the Global Strategy Division, which is the department responsible for formulating management strategies.

Image of intellectual property activity system

The structure for promoting intellectual property strategy. Under the Board of Directors and the President, the Technology Management Division, which is responsible for formulating the intellectual property strategy, formulates the strategy in cooperation with the Global Strategy Division, and the Intellectual Property Department, which is responsible for executing the intellectual property strategy, implements the strategy in cooperation with the Business Operations Division, business promotion departments, group companies, etc.

Intellectual Property Activities by Operating Segment

Automotive components

In our automotive components business, which is the pillar of our earnings, we will promote IP mix activities that protect our technologies and expertise in multiple aspects.
Regarding patents specifically, we will secure a competitive advantage over competitors using the patent asset index (PAI) as an indicator, in accordance with activities during the PLC maturity stage. In specific terms, we aim to continue contributing to maximizing profitability by reinforcing patent networks to build a competitive advantage and optimizing our patent portfolio by conducting inventories of unnecessary patents.

Examples of activities

Defense with a superior patent portfolio
Reinforcement of patent networks to secure competitive advantage
Inventory of patents related to obsolete or unnecessary technologies
Brand protection by detecting and eliminating counterfeit products
Defense through know-how secrecy

Patent asset index (PAI) for spark plugs (as of April 2026)

Distribution chart of PAI values related to spark plugs. The horizontal axis represents the number of patent families held, the vertical axis represents the average patent value per patent family, and the bubble size represents PAI (the total value of held patents). Our company is located to the upper right of competitors 1 and 2, and we aim to position ourselves by narrowing down the number of patent families through optimization.

Our PAI value related to spark plugs maintains superiority over competitors.
We will also promote strategic reinforcement of our patent network while conducting a patent inventory within a range that maintains scores and the number of patent families above those of our competitors

* Prepared by our company from LexisNexis PatentSight
We evaluate these figures using the Patent Asset Index of LexisNexis PatentSight. This index comprehensively takes into account the technology perspective, market perspective, and number of patent applications and rights with valid legal status (pending applications and patents that have been granted).

Component solutions

In the component solutions business, we identify the PLC stage by business and our IP (technological) position relative to competitors to set goals leading up to the end of the Mid-term Management Plan in March 2030; simultaneously, we are promoting the formulation and execution of specific activity plans to achieve these goals.
Additionally, we contribute to multifaceted market research for business promotion through the use of the IP landscape, and we work together with the development departments to create intellectual property that will strengthen business competitiveness.

Examples of activities

Step 1: Organize the company’s intellectual property that is the source of competitive advantage, and analyze the trends and expected competitors in related business areas using patent analysis (utilizing the IP landscape)
Step 2: Consider what the future should look like in connection with the development strategy
Step 3:Formulate and implement a strategy for realizing the vision of the future (setting IP activity policies and goals, planning activities, etc.)
Step 4: Look back at implementation details

We aim to realize the ideal situation of the component solutions business by repeatedly carrying out the steps above with a sense of speed.

Patent publication rate by business in Japan (total as 100%)

Trends in patent disclosure rates by business segment in Japan (total set to 100%). The proportion of component and solutions-related patents has been increasing year by year, from approximately 65% in 2020 to approximately 85% in 2025.

The ratio of patent publications related to the component solutions business has been increasing year by year since 2019 and has remained at approximately 80% in recent years.