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Toshiba Group's policy on intellectual property rights is to observe laws and regulations associated with them, to protect the results of intellectual activities with the rights and make extensive use of those rights, and to respect the legitimate intellectual property rights of third parties, as stipulated in the Toshiba Group Standards of Conduct.
At Toshiba, the Intellectual Property Division, a corporate staff division, is responsible for the protection of intellectual property rights. In-house companies and key group companies also establish their own organizations responsible for intellectual property protection.
Patent infringement lawsuits brought by third parties are a business risk. To mitigate or eliminate the risk of infringement of the intellectual property of third parties, in developing its businesses, Toshiba conducts investigations of related intellectual property rights in advance and implements necessary measures to avoid infringement of third-party patents and other intellectual property rights.
Also, we conduct a periodic survey to ensure appropriate software management at Toshiba, including prevention of illegal copying of software.
Recently, due to the prevalence of the internet, it has become easier to copy third parties' copyright works. As such, the need to hedge risk against the unauthorized use of copyright works is increasing. For this reason, Toshiba periodically provides copyright education to all executives and employees, including those of group companies in Japan.
Failure to take action against counterfeits of Toshiba products would pose not only the risk of damage to Toshiba's brand value and public confidence, but also the risk of purchasing counterfeit products that do not meet the quality expectations of customers who mistake them for genuine products.
Accordingly, to ensure that customers can purchase Toshiba products with confidence and peace of mind, Toshiba, in cooperation with public agencies, strives to eliminate counterfeit products that infringe Toshiba's intellectual property rights. In fiscal 2007, the number of incidents related to counterfeit products as well as those successfully exposed by Toshiba in the overseas market reached record high. Toshiba considers this to be the result of systematic countermeasures, such as direct visits to government organizations in places where counterfeit goods have been discovered in order to exchange opinions about methods of countering counterfeit products. Furthermore, in China, the “TOSHIBA” and the TOSHIBA in Chinese characters were recognized as well-known trademarks for fiscal 2007.
Various counterfeit products are being discovered all over the world and examples of skillful counterfeiting are on the rise, as indicated by the discovery of counterfeits of information equipment of Toshiba Group as well as other companies. Toshiba will take advantage of the “well-known trademark” recognition to continue with countermeasures with the aim of achieving a fundamental solution to the problem of counterfeit products, which is expected to become larger and more complex in the future.
As of June 30, 2008, there are no matters related to intellectual property rights that correspond to operational risks recorded in the annual securities report.
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