1 of 6 Abstract - The global intellectual property system is currently being revolutionized by changes in innovation and the quantitative expansion in patenting. There is an expectation of applying the results of academic patents studies to the reformation of the intellectual property system. On the other hand, the rapid quantitative expansion in academic knowledge is posing difficulties for the application of conventional techniques to extract required knowledge or apply a suitable synthesis. This article has the purpose of effective implementation of large volumes of knowledge for policy formation and examines the methodology for specifying academic growth fronts, important research domains or comprehension of the academic landscape. We specify that research fronts have a profound association with issues surrounding reform of the system. Keywords – Academic Landscape, Intellectual Property Rights, Policy, Structuring Knowledge I. INTRODUCTION The intellectual property system centering on patents when viewed globally is undergoing a far-reaching revolution. Quantitative problems include the increasing difficulty of reducing backlogs and maintaining patent quality due to the increase in patent applications including applications by non-residents. These developments are occurring against a background of the internationalization of innovative activities, the acceleration of innovation and intensifying competition in strategic areas such as sustainable energy technologies or next-generation IT. Conspicuous qualitative problems include changes in innovation such as increasing science linkage [1], the increasingly complicated relationship between products and patents and the development of open innovation [2][3]. The basis of the patent system is being rocked by structural change in the basic assumptions which are based on the above premises. There is an increasing recognition that the current intellectual property system which has formed the basis of current patent law may no longer be necessarily capable of promoting innovation. In the context of these developments, a wide-ranging Bill bringing historic changes to the US patent laws is currently being discussed by the Congress of the United States, while in Japan consideration has begun of radical modifications to the patent law system. In addition, trends This paper was supported by a grant from the NEDO and Economic and Social Research Institute, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan. The views contained here reflect those of the authors. are gathering pace toward cooperation for the formation of a PPH (Patent Prosecution Highway) or harmonization of the international system through the addition of the BRICS nations to the Japan, Korea, United States and European axis. For example, at the Asian Intellectual Property Conference in Kyoto or the Japan-US-Europe Trilateral Patent Office Heads Meeting in 2009, there was evidence of a broad recognition of a necessity for international cooperation related to the development of an examination and search system and the need for improvement to the quality and speed of examination in addition to reformation of the overall system and its operation. Currently there is a strong demand for an acceleration of the path towards construction of the next generation intellectual property system with the context of international cooperation. However, the task of formulating balanced systemic proposals for an already complicated patent system while at the same time effectively promoting the various changes to innovation is extremely difficult. Furthermore there are difficulties associated with predicting what effect any systemic change will have on innovative activities. In recent years, the growing academic research into innovation or the intellectual property system holds the promise of a large contribution to the task discussed above. However, the effective implementation of academic knowledge to systemic proposals is premised on an understanding of the meta structure of knowledge, the academic landscape. More precisely, such an understanding of the landscape resides in a synthesis enabled by collating the principal academic discussion related to the points in issue regarding systemic proposals, identifying and separating those issues having a firm factual and academic basis within the discussion from other opinions, performing a comparative analysis from a multifaceted viewpoint and extracting persuasive comment supporting that debate. If that process is not possible, there is the risk of being influenced by marginal opinions or that the required knowledge cannot be extracted from the large volume of information. Limitations on the implementation of academic knowledge are demonstrated by the annual increase in the number of publications in this area and the fact that comprehension of the overall landscape using conventional methods such specialist conferences or outsourced mapping is becoming increasingly difficult. In this paper, what is the appropriate way to identify the An Academic Landscape of Patent & Innovation Research for Policy Reform Ichiro Sakata 1 , Hajime Sasaki 2 , Yuya Kajikawa 3 , Masahiro Hashimoto 4 , Akira Morita 5 1,2,5 Todai Policy Alternatives Research Institute, the University of Tokyo 3 Innovation Policy Research Center, Institute of Engineering Innovation, the University of Tokyo 4 Japan Patent Office (isakata@ipr-ctr.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp, sasaki@utri.co.jp, kaji@ipr-ctr.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp, hashimoto-masahiro@meti.go.jp, morita@j.u-tokyo.ac.jp)