Osaka, Japan – Daikin Industries, Ltd. announced its selection among the Clarivate Top 100 Global Innovators 2021 as determined by Clarivate Plc, a global information services with headquarters in London, United Kingdom.

Since 2011, Clarivate has been analysing patent data to identify the world’s top 100 innovative companies and research institutions and has honoured these outstanding companies with this award for the past 10 years. This year marks the eighth time overall and the seventh consecutive year that Daikin has been selected.

Leveraging its extensive proprietary patent data, Clarivate analyses intellectual property trends and evaluates companies and research institutions worldwide for its prestigious list of Clarivate Top 100 Global Innovators. The evaluation comprises four criteria: volume (number of patents registered in the last five years), success (percentage of patent registrations after examination), globalisation (percentage of applications in the four major markets of China, Europe, Japan, and the United States), and influence (citation frequency in other companies’ patents).

As an air-conditioning manufacturer with global business operations, Daikin allows the use of some of its patents by other companies in order to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases for the industry overall. For example, in 2011, Daikin granted emerging countries free access to 93 patents related to air conditioning equipment utilising refrigerant HFC-32 (R32), a refrigerant with low global warming potential (GWP), and it expanded access worldwide to all countries in 2015. Moreover, in 2019, Daikin expanded the scope of patents and pledged the non-assertion of those patents to support conversion to refrigerants with high energy savings and low GWP. In recognition of these efforts, Daikin was awarded the “Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award” at the “Intellectual Property Achievement Award” for fiscal year 2020 conducted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Japan Patent Office.

Daikin will continue to work on R&D activities for creating innovation that provides new value to society as it further strengthens the intellectual property activities that support them.