Important experience for chief intellectual property officers (CIPOs)

CIPO is a leader in enterprise management who is responsible for promoting strategic IP management. Despite the increasing importance of CIPO, there is no current criterion which focuses on the key skills for CIPO. One of the reasons must be that the CIPO position is new and there aren't enough studies on CIPO. This study intends to remedy this situation. We provided questionnaire surveys to various companies in Japan and US/EU that submitted a high volume of patent applications which is based on the ratio analysis of previous questionnaires classified by the volume of submitted patent applications per year. Kato's previous study (2010) shows that there were two types of CIPOs. One mostly involves IP practice (hereafter "IP-CIPO"), and the other mostly involves technology (i.e., R&D) (hereafter "Technology-CIPO"). Kato also found that the opinion on experience which comes to be important for CIPO differs due to the types of CIPOs. In this study, contrasting view was held by Japanese and US/EU CIPOs. Japanese IP-CIPO and Technology-CIPO had very different opinions on important experience skill(s) for CIPO. However by contrast, there was no divergence in opinion between IP-CIPO and Technology-CIPO in US/EU.