Intellectual Property

The Brother Group started out in the sewing machine repair business in 1908. Leveraging its product knowledge gained through sewing machine repairs, it succeeded in the mass production of domestic home sewing machines in 1932. After this, the business diversified into typewriters and home appliances, leveraging the press-molding and precision processing technologies cultivated through the development and manufacturing of sewing machines. Furthermore, by combining motor and electronic technologies, it has developed a variety of products for both consumers and industrial applications, including machine tools and communications and printing equipment. The spread of our unique technologies allows us to provide customers with unique Brother's value.

• Brother Group Product and Technology Timeline

At Brother Industries, Ltd., the development departments and the intellectual property department consider intellectual property strategies from various perspectives and set goals for each business area. To ensure the implementation of our intellectual property strategies, we hold regular reporting meetings and, for matters requiring important decision-making, we report to the management, including officers in charge of each business, as needed and ask for their instructions.
Meanwhile, we have established incentive and award systems for employees to encourage the creation of inventions and designs as well as intellectual property activities. Even though in-house inventions are under control as know-how rather than applying for patents, the systems also reward employees who created inventions. Moreover, in FY2024, we received the Chubu Regional Invention Award for our invention of an air-powered tool cleaning device for machine tools. Such external invention awards have been broadly announced throughout the Company.

Aiming for a business portfolio transformation to realize the group vision "At your side 2030," the Brother Group is working on the research and development of a variety of unique technologies to create products and services desired by its customers. In FY2024, the Brother Group as a whole invested approximately 49.5 billion yen in R&D. We possess numerous patents for inkjet print head technology, which strengthens the Industrial Printing area, one of the pillars of our business portfolio transformation. In the P&S Business, we have named our new inkjet printing technology "MAXIDRIVE," and by branding it as a technology trademark, we protect our intellectual property in both patent and trademark aspects. To support these businesses, we are strengthening our efforts to obtain and utilize intellectual property rights, including patents, utility models, designs, and trademarks, while appropriately combining them. Moreover, as part of our efforts for the business portfolio of the future, we are strengthening collaboration with external parties such as Nagoya Institute of Technology to promote the creation of new technologies and businesses.

The Brother Group obtains intellectual property according to the situation of each business area. For example, in the Industrial Printing area, we support the advancement of our business by actively obtaining patents for inkjet-related technology, one of our fundamental technologies. In the Printing area, we continue our activities to possess a considerable number of valuable patents in order to increase profitability and maintain our competitive advantage in an industry with a high number of patents. We also conduct strategic intellectual property activities, including obtaining patent rights as a barrier to entry, by identifying promising technologies through collaboration between the development departments and the intellectual property department. In March 2025, the "Clarivate Top 100 Global Innovators 2025" title was awarded to Brother Industries, Ltd. for the eighth time by Clarivate, a U.K.-based company, as an organization at the top of the global innovation ecosystem.
We also utilize our patent rights in a variety of ways. For example, if our business is threatened by the manufacturing or sale of infringing products, we may issue warnings or enforce our rights, seeking injunctions and compensation for damage.
Meanwhile, we respect the rights of third parties and conduct diligent research to ensure that we do not infringe any intellectual property rights of others when developing new products. To strengthen these activities, we continually develop human resources involved in intellectual property. We provide designers with opportunities to deepen their knowledge of intellectual property through internal e-learning and training programs tailored to their level. We also provide intellectual property department personnel with professional education through multi-year programs.

Status of Patents

In order to resolve our customers' problems, we have built an internal platform that uses technologies and information from both inside and outside the Company and are promoting open innovation. As our internal platform, we operate the Brother Open Innovation Bridge, which compiles the technical issues and interests of each development department within the Company, identifies and introduces optimal external partners such as universities and startups, and enables the sharing of information researched and analyzed within the Company.