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Introduction

As the G7 Presidency, Japan hosted the G7 Hiroshima Summit from May 19 to 21, 2023, in Hiroshima. In conjunction with the Hiroshima Summit, the G7 Agriculture Ministers' Meeting was held in Miyazaki from April 22 to 23, 2023. Sustainable agriculture and food security were the basis of the discussion held at the 2023 G7 Agriculture Minister’s Communiqué^*1, followed by the Miyazaki Actions^*2, that summarized actions to be taken by the G7 countries, which were later adopted.
The 2023 G7 Agriculture Minister’s Communiqué stated that “Building upon relevant international initiatives including G7 Global Alliance for Food Security and its transformation into concrete actions, we will actively engage in work, as the G7, as individual countries and as members of the international community to contribute to achieving more productive, resilient and sustainable agriculture and food systems with no one left behind”.
Cellular agriculture, which cultivates and grows meat and fish cells, is said to play a role in future food security.

 

Status of Rule Formation in Japan

The status of rule formation regarding cellular agriculture in Japan is as follows.
Moeha Ido（Assistant Director, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Minister’s Secretariat, New Business and Food Industry Policy Division, Planning Group (at the time)） states that “it is necessary to examine cultured meat’s safety and determine new rules to ensure protection because consumption of this product is novel. Because people currently eat insects in some regions in the world, there is no discussion of new safety legislation for this item in Japan at present” ^*3. In Japan, there currently is no clear prospect for the timing of the launch of cellular foods. Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (“MAFF”) established a Council for Public-Private Partnership in Food Technology in 2020 and on February 21, 2023, the council presented the following roadmap for Cell-Based Food^*4 (Please note that this is not an official English translation of the original Japanese document.).

At a meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives held on February 22, the day after the release of the roadmap, Prime Minister Kishida stated," we recognize that foodtech, which utilizes new technologies in the food field, including Cell-Based Food, is an important technology from the perspective of realizing a sustainable food supply to meet the increasing global demand for food" and "we must promote the development of an environment to create a new market, including safety assurance measures and labeling rules, and foster Japan-originated foodtech businesses to contribute to solving food and environmental problems in Japan and the world, as well as to the development of the Japanese economy. I believe that we must support efforts to contribute to solving Japan's and the world's food and environmental problems, as well as to the development of Japan's economy. The private sector is also taking the lead in this effort"^*5.

As Prime Minister Kishida mentioned, private-sector initiatives are also gaining momentum.
For example, in November 2022, the Japan Association for Cellular Agriculture　(JACA) ^*6 submitted a proposal for rule formation to the relevant ministries and agencies.

 

Issues Related to Intellectual Property

Although safety and labeling issues related to cellular foods are the main focus of discussion, as stated in the roadmap, intellectual property of cells collected from animal tissues (hereafter simply referred to as “Cells”) is considered and discussed as an important topic.
One of the reasons for this debate is understood to be for coexistence with the existing livestock industry. In particular, there are concerns that the livestock industry itself would shrink as Cell-Based Food develops, especially in regard to “cultured meat”, a meat produced by growing Cells. Experts have indicated that cellular agriculture can coexist with the existing industry where cellular agriculture operates as an alternative. For example, by incorporating livestock producers as part of the cell agriculture supply chain and obtaining Cells from them on a case-by-case basis, livestock producers can operate their businesses while keeping the number of animals on their farms low^*7.
For this method to be effective, it is a prerequisite that livestock producers somehow have a way to license their Cells for use in cellular agriculture, and intellectual property rights could be one of the grounds for this.
In Japan, “since wagyu beef is Japan’s unique precious property that has been improved by persons involved over the ages” ^*8, the Act on Prevention of Unfair Competition Involving Livestock Genetic Resources enacted in April 2020 and took effect in October 2020. The intellectual property value of genetic resources is now recognized. 

The scope of protection of the said Act is limited to semen and fertilized eggs of Wagyu beef, but because the Cells will play a role similar to fertilized eggs and semen in livestock production, applying the concept of the act to cellular agriculture may be a possibility.
However, in cellular agriculture, it is still unclear whether traits derived from cells are inherited in cultured meat, and more careful discussion is needed on whether they should be treated in the same way. On the other hand, livestock genetic resources are recognized as intellectual property because the livestock produced using such resources inherit superior traits and can be differentiated in terms of meat quality, etc^*9

The possibility that the intellectual property value of the cells could be recognized from an entirely different perspective should not be ruled out. In other words, the current breeding of livestock has naturally been done on the premise of conventional methods of livestock production (i.e., raising animals as living creatures and slaughtering them to produce meat), with the goal of producing high-quality meat. On the other hand, assuming Cell-Based Food products, it is possible that the value of cells will be evaluated from the perspective of, for example, ease of proliferation and ease of forming three-dimensional structures, and that breeding will be carried out for this purpose.

Other issues related to intellectual property concerning cellular foods include the handling of brands. As typified by the wagyu beef brand, there are various brands of food products in Japan, for example “Kobe Beef”, and it is expected that some businesses will want to produce Cell-Based Food products from these cells in anticipation of the attractiveness of these food products to customers. In such cases, it is necessary to organize rules for the use of conventional food brand names.

In addition to the use of existing food brands, it is also expected that the first Cell-Based Food brands will naturally emerge in the future. Traditionally, many food brands have been associated with place names (e.g., Kobe in Kobe Beef is the name of a city in Japan). If Cell-Based Food is to be branded in the same way as regional brands, how they will be handled in the Regional Collective Trademark System needs to be clarified in the future.

 

Conclusion

2023 G7 Agriculture Minister’s Communiqué states that "we recognize that there are different rules, voluntary guidelines and private-sector standards addressing responsible and sustainable agricultural supply chains and the need for coherent understanding and complementary approaches while recognizing different national circumstances".

The rule formation, including intellectual property related to Cells in Japan described above should be continued while keeping a close eye on trends in other countries. At the same time, it is necessary to actively communicate with rest of the world, keeping in mind that Japanese rules should not become Galapagized. This newsletter will provide updates as soon as they become available.

*1 https://www.maff.go.jp/e/policies/inter_relate/attach/pdf/230308-1.pdf　
*2 https://www.maff.go.jp/e/policies/inter_relate/attach/pdf/230308-2.pdf
*3 Moeha Ido. December, 2022. The Goals, Issues, and Measures of Foodtech Acceleration. Journal of Intellectual Property Association of Japan 19(2): 37-42 https://www.ipaj.org/bulletin/pdfs/JIPAJ19-2PDF/19-2_p037-042.pdf
*4 “Roadmap” Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
*5 The　House of Representatives Budget Committee Minutes　https://www.shugiin.go.jp/internet/itdb_kaigiroku.nsf/html/kaigiroku/001821120230222013.htm#TopContents　
*6 About JACA https://www.jaca.jp/about-en 〔Accessed June 7, 2023〕
*7 Commissioned Research Project for Establishment and Internationalization of JAS　Report　https://www.maff.go.jp/j/jas/attach/pdf/yosan-32.pdf
*8 MAFF. Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ Intellectual Property Strategy 2025
https://www.maff.go.jp/e/policies/intel/attach/pdf/index-2.pdf
*9 MAFF. Guidelines for Livestock Genetic Resources
https://www.maff.go.jp/j/chikusan/kikaku/attach/pdf/kachiku_iden-2.pdf