Introduction

Innovation is the source of competition. Companies aim to seek efficient innovation through measures such as personnel allocation, establishment of bases, and capital investment, with the aim of achieving continuous business growth. In recent years, the importance of innovation ecosystems that support innovation has been pointed out, and the development of innovation ecosystems is also progressing in Japan.

In September 2024, the World Intellectual Property Organization (the “WIPO”) announced the results of its ranking and analysis of global science and technology clusters in relation to innovation ecosystems (“Science and Technology Cluster Ranking 2024”). In this report, “Tokyo-Yokohama” was selected as the number one global science and technology cluster in the world.

In this article, we will introduce the content of the above report, analyze the reasons why Yokohama was selected in addition to Tokyo, and explain the appeal of Yokohama as an innovation ecosystem.

 

About Global Science and Technology Clusters

The WIPO’s ranking of global science and technology clusters (“S&T clusters”) for 2024 is as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: GII S&T Cluster 2024 Ranking
(Cited from the WIPO’s website (English and Japanese))

As you can see in Figure 1, “Tokyo-Yokohama” was ranked as the world's number one global science and technology cluster. This was followed by “Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou” in second place and “Beijing” in third place. “San Jose-San Francisco”, also known as Silicon Valley, was ranked in sixth. Of the top 15 regions, ten are in Asia, and three of these are in Japan (Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto ranked seventh, and Nagoya ranked in fifteenth place).

S&T clusters are considered to be one of the elements of the Global Innovation Index (“GII”), which is used to identify regions where world-class science and technology activities are taking place. The WIPO identifies S&T clusters based on data about the locations and on authors of published scientific papers. WIPO Director General, Mr. Darren Tan, has stated that S&T clusters are the foundation of a strong national innovation ecosystem.

Thus, regions that have been highly evaluated as S&T clusters can be said to be important bases for innovation ecosystems. In other words, the innovation ecosystems in Japan and other parts of Asia are making a strong contribution to the development of science and technology around the world, and among these, “Tokyo-Yokohama” can be said to be markedly important as an innovation ecosystem base.

In this article, we will analyze the importance and appeal of Yokohama as an innovation ecosystem, and answer the question of whether having a base in Yokohama has a positive impact on innovation activities, especially intellectual property activities.

 

Analyses on the importance of Yokohama as a an innovation ecosystem

3.1 Analysis 1: Locations of companies selected for the Top 100 Global Innovators 2024

Clarivate publishes the Top 100 Global Innovators list every year. The 2024 edition was announced on March 5, 2024 (English and Japanese), and the 38 Japanese companies selected among the Top 100 Global Innovators 2024 are listed in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Japanese companies selected as Top 100 Global Innovators 2024
(Source: Clarivate website)

Among these 38 companies, the percentage of companies that have R&D or sales bases in Yokohama City is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Percentage of Japanese companies selected as Top 100 Global Innovators 2024 that have bases in Yokohama City (including subsidiaries)

Calculated based on the Clarivate website and the websites of the selected companies

The classification of the bases is based on publicly available information from each company's website, etc. Please note that you may need to contact each company for more details.

As you can see, of the 38 Japanese companies selected as Top 100 Global Innovators 2024, a surprisingly high number of 11 companies (29%) have R&D bases in Yokohama City, and 11 companies (29%) have sales bases in the city. In total, 22 companies (58%) have a base in Yokohama City, which is more than half of the total number of Japanese companies selected. It is not clear whether the “Tokyo-Yokohama” area, which was selected as the top global science and technology cluster, includes the areas around Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture (such as Kawasaki City and Fujisawa City), but if these areas are included, the percentage of the 38 companies that have bases in Yokohama will be even higher.

In addition, looking at overseas companies, for example, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, both of which have won the Top 100 Global Innovator award for the last 13 consecutive years, have R&D bases in the Minato Mirai 21 district, while Swedish company Ericsson, and U.S. companies Dow and Honeywell, also have sales bases in Yokohama City.

As you can see, there is a certain correlation between the high evaluation of intellectual property and innovation activities and the fact that companies have bases in Yokohama City.

3.2 Analysis 2: Trends in patent applications originating in Yokohama City

Next, in order to quantify the level of innovation in a region based on patent information, we conducted our own survey of the number of patent applications based on inventor residence data for large metropolitan areas, including Yokohama City. In the survey, we compared the total number of family cases in patent application publication bulletins and patent bulletins over the past 10 years (2014-2024) for nine regions (including “Tokyo”, “Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture”, “Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture”, etc.), including inventors who have their residence in each region, but excluding those who have their registered address in the region as the applicant or rights holder.

Here, “families that include inventors with a residence in the region but exclude those with a place of business in the region as applicants or rights holders” can be considered to be an indicator of the level of innovation in that region.

It might be true that “families that include inventors with a residence in the region” themselves, for example, can also indicate the level of innovation in the region. However, since “families that include inventors with a residence in the region” can include many patent applications from companies with their headquarters in the region, it is assumed that the number of families will be strongly influenced by the number of headquarters located in the region.

On the other hand, a typical example of a family that includes inventors who have a residence in the region but does not include applicants or rights holders who have a residence in the region is an application for an invention by an inventor who has a residence in a location different from the home base of the applicant or rights holder. In this case, the inventor may be an employee of a company (for example, an employee belonging to an R&D base placed in a region different from the location of the company's headquarters) or a person who does not belong to that company (for example, a researcher at a university).

In this way, the number of “families that include inventors who have a residence in the region, but do not include those who have a place of business in the region as applicants or rights holders” is considered to show a certain significance as an indicator of the level of innovation in the region^*1.

Figure 4 shows the results of the analysis of this indicator for each of the nine regions. The number of families in each region is shown from the highest to the lowest: approximately 35,000 in Tokyo, followed by approximately 24,000 in Yokohama City, and approximately 11,000 in Osaka City. Yokohama City is in second place after Tokyo, and has more than twice the number of families as Osaka City, which is in third place.

We note that there is a gap of over 10,000 between Tokyo and Yokohama City, and it is undeniable that there is a very high concentration of innovation in Tokyo. However, the fact that Yokohama City is ranked in second place, far ahead of third place, is an astonishing result that shows the high level of innovation in Yokohama City.

Furthermore, Kawasaki City, which is situated next to Yokohama City and belongs to the same prefecture, is ranked as 4th (approximately 9,000). If you add the number of inventions in Kawasaki City to the number in Yokohama City, the total number is comparable to that of Tokyo. This shows the high level of innovation in the Yokohama area, including Yokohama City and Kawasaki City.

Figure 4: Total number of families in the nine regions from 2014 to 2024, including inventors who have their residence in the region but excluding applicants and rights holders who have their place of business in the region

Calculated based on publicly available information

 

3.3 Analysis 3: Relationship with the functional requirements of an innovation ecosystem

Given the above, we need to analyze what are the factors that make Yokohama City an important base for innovation ecosystems and a highly active location for innovation.

According to Nomura Research Institute^*2, the following six functional requirements, shown in Figure 5, are essential for the growth and sustainability of an innovation ecosystem.

Figure 5: Six functional requirements necessary for an innovation ecosystem
(Cited from a report by Nomura Research Institute and arranged by TMI)

When we apply this to Yokohama, we can see that the city of Yokohama has each of these six functional requirements.

Functional requirements		Characteristics of Yokohama City
(i)	Human capital	There are many universities and corporate bases.
(ii)	Economic capital	There is a lot of economic activity in the Minato Mirai area and the Shin-Yokohama Station area, etc., with the formation of R&D bases for domestic and foreign companies.
(iii)	Infrastructure capital	Yokohama has good access to the center of Tokyo, being situated only about 30 minutes away. It also has strong access by air and land, with Haneda Airport nearby and Shin-Yokohama Station, where the Tokaido Shinkansen stops. Yokohama has a well-developed accommodation environment, convention facilities such as Pacifico Yokohama, etc., and is highly valued as a MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) location. There are also business bases for startups set up in places such as Tsurumi Ward and the Suzukakedai Campus of the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
(iv)	Promotion Environment Capital	There is a support environment centered around YOXO BOX. In addition, in November 2024, “TECH HUB YOKOHAMA”, a base for supporting the growth of technology-based startups, is scheduled to open in the Minato Mirai district.
(v)	Network Capital	There are several programs being developed, including an accelerator program as part of YOXO.
(vi)	Cultural capital	Yokohama City is developing a program to support social verification and implementation. As a “port city” that has been open to the world, Yokohama has been a source of culture and trends through the influx of culture from other countries and the modernization of Japanese society, and it has fostered an innovative citizen culture that embraces new things.

As such, Yokohama City is a highly convenient location for domestic and international companies to set up bases, thanks to its strong access by air and land, as well as its excellent accommodation environment.

In addition, office rents are lower than in central Tokyo, which makes it easier to create an office that is beneficial for both employees and companies, as a creative working environment with a sense of openness, or as a base that requires large-scale space. Taking the Minato Mirai 21 district as an example, there are many modern-designed buildings lined up along wide, green-filled sidewalks, giving the area an open and functional office environment. In addition, Tsurumi Ward in Yokohama City, where the RIKEN Institute and the Yokohama City Industry-Academia Collaboration Research Center have bases, is also famous as an area where many companies have set up technology development bases.

Furthermore, there are several universities in the city, and the government also provides extensive support for startups, so we can expect to see more collaboration between academia and startups moving forward.

It is thought that multiple domestic and foreign companies that have received high evaluations for their intellectual property activities have established bases in Yokohama City because of these characteristics as shown in the analysis in 3.1 above. In addition, as shown in the analysis in 3.2 above, it is thought that this has resulted in many patent applications originating in Yokohama City having been filed as a manifestation of the active innovation in Yokohama City.

Conclusion

In the above, we have analyzed the factors behind the high level of innovation in Yokohama, starting with the WIPO article that selected “Tokyo-Yokohama” as the world’s leading S&T cluster.

The ideas that become the source of innovation are IP (intellectual property) that is important for business growth. New business innovation sometimes occurs in an unfamiliar technical field or business domain. Moreover, when collaborating with other companies, it is necessary to thoroughly protect your own IP in order to prevent imitation by, for example, the other companies you are collaborating with.

As you can see, at the forefront of innovation, there are many situations where the “common sense” of businesses that we had become accustomed to is actually inappropriate. Protecting IP properly is extremely important in order to efficiently and powerfully develop one’s business. Patent attorneys and lawyers throughout TMI are well places to provide support for your business in this field.

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*1 It must be said, of course, that there are limitations to this index in that it does not take into account families of inventions that have been created at other bases within the same region. Moreover, since there are a certain number of patent applications where the inventor's residence is uniformly set as the location of the applicant's head office, this index may also underestimate the level of innovation in the region in question. Even if this is the case, however, this index measures the level of innovation in a region in terms of the number of ideas created by the presence of applicants and rights holders from outside the region (human resources, capital, etc.) acting together with inventors within the region, and we believe that this is an index that should be considered in this respect.

*2 Nomura Research Institute, “The Innovation Creation Function of Cities: How to Promote Value Creation Activities in Innovation Hubs” (NRI Public Management Review, April 2020)