Japan Patent Office Has First Woman Commissioner

On July 5, 2017 Naoko Munakata took over as commissioner of the Japan Patent Office and is the first woman to hold this position. She is replacing Yoshinori Komiya who recently retired. Prior to her position as the new JPO commissioner, Munakata was executive secretary to Prime Minister Abe.

Prime Minister Abe has heavily promoted his “three arrows” economic policy which has come to be known as Abenomics. As part of one of the arrows, there has been a “womenonics” initiative to increase the number of women in leadership positions. Currently, only about 8% of senior leadership roles are filled by women in Japan, but Prime Minister Abe hopes to increase that number to about 30% by 2020.