Society

Basic stance and policy

At Aisin, we position intellectual property (IP) as a key management resource for achieving sustainable growth and enhancing corporate value. We advance the development of IP based on the results of our technological development. In this way, we establish competitive advantage and, by creating proprietary value, enhance corporate value and accelerate business growth.

Promotion Structure

At the Development Function Meeting, chaired by the Head of the Product Development Center, we formulate IP-related strategies and key policies. Our functional headquarters and companies responsible for development activities coordinate with departments functionally devoted to IP to promote and manage the full integrated cycle from invention and discovery through rights protection, utilization, maintenance and management, and IP assurance (freedom-to-operate). We are also strengthening employee education on the importance of intellectual property and on related operations and activities. In addition, we are strengthening collaboration with our global R&D bases.

Strategy

By analyzing the external environment and reviewing our IP holdings, we are working to advance our management and business strategies. To ensure future growth, we clarify elements of value to be created, areas in which we should build competitive advantage, and domains in which we should secure freedom to operate. We manage our IP strategy from both offensive and defensive perspectives.
Based on this strategy, we promote the creation of new elemental technologies that underpin our strength and the building of an IP portfolio from which we derive future value and competitive advantage. We apply intellectual assets to our existing businesses and, to create new value, invoke it across domains beyond internal business boundaries. Moreover, we build cooperative frameworks with external partners, thereby maximizing the value we can offer. In addition, by respecting third-party intellectual property rights and conducting clearance investigations, we work to protect our business and strengthen our negotiating position.

Value creation cycle driven by intellectual property

Related materiality issues

To ensure our ongoing ability to accumulate new elemental technologies for the future, we track our number of inventions as a KPI and systematically promote activities designed to support the creation and discovery of new inventions. By appropriately combining the acquisition of rights through the patent process with the protection of trade secrets, we manage IP strategically to establish a competitive advantage and maximize its contribution to our business.

Number of inventions: the total of patent applications, instances of confidential (trade-secret) know-how, and published knowledge.

Key initiatives

Initiatives for amassing new elemental technologies

We promote the creation of inventions that hold value and lead to business growth and differentiation. Specifically, we set development concepts based on market and technology trends, including intellectual property information, and on our own strengths, and, under an offensive and defensive IP strategy tailored to each business model, we strategically design our policies on disclosing or keeping inventions confidential as well as the areas for exclusive holding and utilization of patent rights. Based on this hybrid open–closed approach, we systematically promote invention and discovery with a view to securing rights, maintaining confidentiality, and leveraging practical usage.
In recent years and in light of changes in the business and social environment, within the mobility domain we have focused on intelligent systems that combine sensing, software, and AI to support comfortable, safe, and securemovement. In so doing, we have amassed a diverse range of new elemental technologies. Likewise, in the energy domain, we are amassing new elemental technologies in the areas of hydrogen power, CO₂ capture and use, and power generation and renewable energy that support the creation and circulation of clean energy.
In FY2026, we made progress in creating inventions that helped differentiate our business in line with our priority technology themes for future growth. At the same time, we face a remaining challenge to flexibly develop, in response to changes in the environment, an IP portfolio that surfaces new commercial value. As we build a foundation for future growth, we are working to strategically expand our range of priority themes.

Number of inventions related to comfort,
safety, and security

Number of energy-related
inventions

Initiatives for the application and management of intellectual property

We continuously monitor the status and potential of utilizing patent rights and other intellectual property holdings directly in our businesses and through licensing as we continuously assess its qualitative value.
By linking these to our future management and business strategies, we promote the strategic utilization, maintenance, and management of intellectual property. We work to capitalize on our intellectual property holdings as intangible assets by reviewing our past efforts to create and use IP and the resultant effects and then cycle our findings back into our future IP strategy and invention and discovery effort. We are currently building an IP portfolio focused on the mobility, energy, and people (living environment) domains. As of FY2026, we held 9,229 patents—a high total even among automotive parts manufacturers.

FY2026 patent portfolio