Press Release 2011

Japan's leading diversified materials manufacturer Nitto Denko Corporation has been recognized as one of the world's most innovative companies, receiving the Thomson Reuters 2011 Top 100 Global Innovator Award. 
The methodology of this prestigious, independent award is designed to identify the most influential organizations globally as demonstrated through patent and intellectual property data, capitalizing on a series of proprietary, patent-related metrics developed by the Thomson Reuters Intellectual Property Solutions Business. 
"It is increasingly difficult to achieve differentiation from the market peers simply by utilizing our technological advantage nowadays. Against such a backdrop, we will strive to evolve our business model by taking the intellectual property management strategy into consideration, while at the same time continuing pursuit of our new product development endeavors," said Toshihiko Omote, Board Member and CTO, Nitto Denko. "In such a way, we will meet our customers' needs with our optimum value offerings," Omote said. 
Intellectual Property Division GM, Shozo Inoue said, "It is an honor to receive this prestigious award, resulting from an external evaluation based on patent and intellectual property data. We will further pursue our intellectual property management strategy that can support the Nitto Denko group’s business development on a global basis."

The criteria for the Top 100 Global Innovator award are: "Success", which stands for the ratio of published applications to granted patents over the past three years; "Global", which is a ratio that shows which companies place a high value on their portfolios in major world markets; "Influence", a total count of citations by other companies to each organizations' patents over the past five years and; "Volume", a comprehensive picture of the innovation landscape evaluated based on a record of patents published by nearly 50 patent issuing authorities worldwide. For more information, visit www.top100innovators.com. 
The Thomson Reuters 2011 Top 100 Global Innovator companies span the globe. The largest percentage is from North America: 40%. Asia accounts for 31% of the most innovative companies in the world and Europe for 29%. In Asia, Japan dominates with 27% of those represented. Serving as a part of Japan’s solid innovation foundation, Nitto Denko pledges its continuing efforts in maximizing the value of its intellectual property on a group-wide basis.