Intellectual Property

Yamaha Motor Group's Intellectual Property Initiatives

Our Corporate Mission is to be a "Kando Creating Company", aiming to provide new Kando and enriched lives to people around the world. To achieve this, intellectual property—the foundation of our corporate competitiveness—contributes to enhancing the corporate value and brand value of our group through the initiatives with three key axes : "global" intellectual property activities, "integrated" intellectual property strategies with management and business, and the "agile" use of opportunities arising from changes in regulations and the business environment, all under the flag of IP FOR BUSINESS.

1．Creation, Protection, and Use of Intellectual Property

The Company recognizes that intellectual property is a critical corporatempany asset and the foundation for our competitiveness, and we strive to create, protect, and use it. Furthermore, while integrating it with our management plan and business strategies, we actively participate from the upstream of business activities through the use of intellectual property landscape analysis and intellectual property KPIs. By promoting the following "Four Pillars of Intellectual Property Activities", we contribute to management and business decisions and value creation from an intellectual property perspective.

2．Protection of Design

The Company promotes the use of intellectual property mixes that combine patents, design rights, trademarks, and other rights, to achieve multifaceted protection for the designs of the products and services we are so proud of. We position design as a critical management resource and promote design protection activities linked to our business strategy.

3．Ownership of Intellectual Property

The Company promotes various intellectual property initiatives to ensure sustainable business operations globally, by using intellectual property and formulating intellectual property holdings tailored to the competitive environment of each business and business models based on those holdings.

4．Respect for Intellectual Property

The Company takes a firm stance against infringements of the group's intellectual property rights by third parties, from the perspectives of protecting customer trust, protecting our global brand, and securing a competitive advantage. Furthermore, we respect the intellectual property rights of others and strive to comply with intellectual property-related laws and regulations through infringement investigations, clearance, and licensing.

5．Information on Intellectual Property

The Company actively discloses and utilizes information on intellectual property to promote trust and transparency among our stakeholders, including customers, business partners, and employees, and to enhance the competitiveness of our business activities.

6．Encouraging Technological Inventions

The Company has established an Invention Incentive Program that provides appropriate incentives for employee inventions, promoting sustainable innovation based on our technology vision from an intellectual property perspective.

Promotion System and Promotion Process

Intellectual Property Strategy Promotion System

IP analysis perspectives and the IP strategies based on them are used in deliberations at management meetings, the Technology Management Committee, and the Board of Directors meetings, where the Chief General Manager of the Global Risk, Compliance, Legal and IP Center (Executive Officer) participates as a committee member. Furthermore, the annual Technology White Paper, published with the approval of the Technology Committee, visualizes and proposes technological and business trends based on intellectual property analysis. These are incorporated into the medium- to long-term plans of business divisions, technology roadmaps, and considerations for M&A and investment partnerships. Through an intellectual property perspective, we promote technological innovation and strengthen competitiveness, contributing to the creation of value within our company by enhancing corporate and brand value.

Intellectual Property Strategy Promotion Process: Innovation Revs Cycle – Yamaha Motor's Intellectual Property Creation Cycle

To realize our Corporate Mission to be a "Kando Creating Company," we will build an intellectual property value creation cycle, the "Innovation Revs Cycle," based on our Four Pillars of Intellectual Property Activities.

This cycle models the process of driving intellectual property value creation from the present to the future across the following three time axes:

1．Protection and Strengthening of Existing Areas with a View to the Next Several Years

We use an intellectual property mix that combines patents, design rights, trademarks, and other rights, in line with our business strategy. We develop a global intellectual property portfolio that supports the business strategies of each country and region, with multifaceted protection of the appearance and function of products and services and by ensuring our competitive advantage.

2．Preemption and Business Area Expansion with a 10-Year Outlook

Through IP analysis, we identify areas of preemption beyond existing technologies and areas of expansion within existing markets, accelerating intellectual property activities in new core technologies and growth areas.

We will create an intellectual property structure that can respond immediately to future market and technological changes, including M&A and external collaboration.

3．Leading Value Creation with a Vision Beyond 15 Years from Now

We use an intellectual property Landscape, which provides an overview of technological trends and market structure, to identify long-term advanced areas. We drive management decisions and the formulation of medium- to long-term strategies from an intellectual property perspective, building a future-oriented intellectual property strategy that balances the creation of social value with strengthening our business portfolio.

The “Innovation Revs Cycle” is structured in three layers:

By continuously running an intellectual property creation cycle using the intellectual property landscape in this structure, we simultaneously promote technological innovation and business growth.

This will allow us to protect Yamaha Motor's unique value, cut a path to the future, and continue to create new Kando for the world.