A47 No, it probably isn't. In Japan, the ratio of students taking Ph.D.s is low compared to the figure for the United States and Europe, while the ratio of Ph.D.s in science and engineering is especially low. When industry-university cooperation in Japan is compared to that in the United States, one cannot say the situa-tion is working well. Indeed, the Japanese government felt a sense of crisis regarding the state of affairs, and so in 2002 set up the Strategic Council on Intellectual Property, which brought together experts in the field. The findings of the council were announced in July of the same year and led to the establishment of the Strategic Program on the Creation, Protection and Exploitation of Intellectual Property. In March 2003, the Intellectual Property Basic Act came into force and, at the same time, the Intellectual