The company has set up IP Trading Japan, a wholly-owned subsidiary which will buy, sell and license patents and offer consulting and evaluation services to other businesses that hope to profit from trading in their IP.

As well buying, selling and licensing the dormant IP of Alps Electric, IP Trading Japan wants to exploit IP acquired from banks holding IP rights as collateral and bankruptcy administrators.

But the company will also look to buy IP and sell it directly to other companies.

According to the government 660,000 of the more than one million patents that have been issued in Japan are dormant, realizing no value for their owners.

Earlier this year the government's Strategic Council on Intellectual Property recommended that exploitation of unused IP could be one way of contributing to reviving the economy.

The government estimates that 40% of the country's dormant patents in the electronics sector, an area in which IP Trading Japan will focus.

IP Trading Japan was set up with capital of ¥50 million ($409,000) from ALPS Electric and has forecast a modest 2003 sales target of ¥140 million ($1.144 million). IP Trading Japan intends to develop the concept of 'floating IP' - the notion that IP can be bought and sold like any other company. Central to this, it says, is the online trading of IP.

The company will also offer IP consulting and evaluation services that include technical advice in company formations and business restructuring, the development of software to manage IP rights, and introductions to relevant academics.

Unlike other companies who act as agents in the purchase and sale of IP, IP Trading Japan will be buying IP to sell in the future.

Junichiro Umehara, the IP Trading Japan's president, was formerly the manager of the IP department of Alps Electric in Tokyo.

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