Governance
Intellectual Property
Basic policy regarding intellectual property rights
The Sodick Group places importance on acquiring and protecting development rights to technologically differentiate our products and services. We have formulated the following basic policy on intellectual property rights.
- The Company recognizes that intellectual property is an important management asset and will strive to protect and utilize intellectual property.
- The Company will comply with laws, regulations, and internal Company guidelines related to intellectual property and will respect other companies’ intellectual property.
- On the basis of analysis of patent information, the Company will formulate appropriate intellectual property strategies to secure sustainable growth and enhance corporate value.
Intellectual property management structure
The Intellectual Property Department of Sodick is under the direct control of the President and has responsibility for all operations related to the intellectual property in the Sodick Group. The Intellectual Property Department manages, unitarily and transversely, all the intellectual property of business divisions, and can facilitate making the intellectual property strategy while considering the synergies of the Sodick Group as a whole.
Intellectual Property Department staff are stationed at the Head Office/Research and Technology Center (Yokohama, Japan) and the Kaga Factory (Japan) to ensure smooth coordination with engineers and management.
Intellectual property strategy for profit growth
Traditionally, the primary roles of intellectual property departments at machinery manufacturers
were to secure rights for development outputs and resolve intellectual property disputes. In recent years, however, capital markets are demanding higher profitability from companies. Accordingly, intellectual property departments are expected to play a more direct role in driving profit growth. They have close access to the strategies, development trends, and challenges of each business segment, as well as competitors’ patent filing activities and broader technology trends. Leveraging patentrelated big data, they can conduct macro-level analyses of competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, market trends, the ease of market entry, and analysis in identifying potential customers and alliance partners. In addition, they can conduct micro-level analyses of individual patents. Sodick’s Intellectual Property Department also provides proposals to each business division based on the outputs of these macro- and micro-level analyses.
Going forward, we aim to strengthen Sodick’s competitiveness by securing and developing talent capable of engaging in key strategic business initiatives from an intellectual property perspective. These include M&As, entry into new businesses, and startup investments.
Intellectual Property Landscape
Positioning Intellectual Property Landscape as a key intellectual property administrative operation, we have put forward a range of proposals to top management and each business division.
In particular, the greatest strength of the ceramics business lies in its ability to manufacture large ceramic electrostatic chucks, measuring 1,300 mm in both width and depth, with high precision. It is targeting entry into the semiconductor manufacturing equipment market, which is expected to grow in the future. By combining information gathered by business divisions from semiconductor manufacturing equipment manufacturers’ production sites with intelligence provided by our Intellectual Property Department, we analyze where our strengths can be applied within the semiconductor manufacturing process, which involves more than 1,000 steps. We also assess competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, and key development priorities.
Furthermore, in 2025, we analyzed the technological areas in which our strengths and weaknesses lie with respect to wire-cut EDMs and presented the results to business divisions. While we have many strengths in hardware, including equipment and power supplies, we face challenges in software-related areas, such as machining conditions and processing programs. Accordingly, we are working to promote development strategies and recruitment from the perspectives of automation and ease of use.
Sodick’s strengths in intellectual property
While labor shortages in the manufacturing industry are a global challenge, one of Sodick’s strengths lies in its products and solutions that support automation and labor-saving, enabling workers on the manufacturing sites to operate safely and efficiently.
EDM business
Sodick’s Automatic Conductive Piece Shifter “ACPS” received the Machinery & Robot Component Award at the 22nd ‘CHO’ MONODZUKURI Innovative Parts and Components Awards 2025.
By incrementally changing the point of contact, this technology enables the lifespan of the power feed contact that delivers current to the moving wire electrode to be extended. Our ACPS technology, which enables stable, long-duration, unmanned machining by precisely and automatically shifting the position of the power feed contact, is covered by patents JP7162115, CN116265160, and US12594615.
Food machinery segment
Our “Neo Mazar” noodle loosening machine is equipped with multiple cups that can rotate about a center line perpendicular to a circular inclined conveyor belt, allowing for even stirring and portioning of boiled noodles and seasonings within the cups. By reducing manual handling, it lowers the risk of bacterial contamination and foreign matter intrusion, enabling the safer delivery of seasoned noodles. Sodick’s conveyortype Neo Mazar is covered by patents JP7060913, CN11581465, KR102849897, and US20230083718.
Issues to address
1. Protect revenue and brand from counterfeit products
Because wire-cut EDMs use many consumables, we sell some consumables under our own brand. However, counterfeit products bearing our registered trademarks̶in particular, imitation products of wire guides that incorporate diamondprocessed components̶are circulating both domestically and overseas. To prevent brand misuse, we are conducting investigations and taking appropriate action.
2. Leverage intellectual property to promote partnerships
To reduce development time and mitigate investment risk, we are promoting joint development and partnerships with other companies and universities. While we have identified potential alliance candidates through large-scale patent landscape analysis, other companies can likewise analyze our patents and consider us as a potential partner. Accordingly, when drafting patent specifications, we make every effort to present the strengths of our technology in clear, accessible terms.
3. Conduct risk management for branding and information dissemination
We actively utilize social media for promotional activities. However, because social media platforms are accessible to the general public, they carry the risk of damaging the value of our products, brand, and intellectual property. To ensure effective branding and risk management in information dissemination via social media and other channels by the Company and its affiliated companies, our Public Relations Office, Sales Promotion Office, Intellectual Property Department, Export Control Office, and Legal Affairs Office are working together to establish an appropriate framework.
Intellectual property targets and progress
As Sodick’s overseas sales ratio has increased, so have its foreign patent ratio, climbing from 47% of total holdings as of December 31, 2022 to 58% at the end of 2025. Outside Japan, our key jurisdictions for patent filings are the United States, China, Germany, and the United Kingdom for EDMs; the United States for metal 3D printers; the United States and China for injection molding machines; and China and South Korea for food machinery.
Number of patents held by country and region
(as of the end of December 2025)
Number of patents held by product
