Activities of the BEANS Laboratory

Achievements and Activities of the BEANS Project
Presentations for the BEANS Project given at MEMS 2010
were (1) “MEMS-based exposure module for continuous
lithography process on fiber substrates” given by the Macro
BEANS Center, (2) “Core-shell gel wires for the construction oflarge area heterogeneous structures with biomaterials” given by
the Life BEANS Center, and (3) “Transplantation of aneurospheroid network onto the rat brain” also given by theLife BEANS Center.
The achievements of the BEANS Project have been
generating much interest, often receiving coverage on televisionand in newspapers and trade and business journals. Recently,Shoji Takeuchi, associate professor at the University of Tokyo,
and Chihaya Adachi, professor at Kyushu University, wereinterviewed several times about their research activities for anarticle in the January 2010–and final–issue of Nikkei
Microdevices. The title of the article is “Generating Demand for
a Supernatural World That Transcends Nature through Device
Technology. ”
The most important goal of R&D in the BEANS Project isthe creation of intellectual property. In fact, all researchers inthe project are assigned a quota for the number of patents orideas they must produce. We have been applying a new type ofIP management within our collaborative system of businesses,universities, and national research institutes, and recently had
the opportunity to introduce this management system to agroup of Japanese and foreign professionals in intellectual
property at the International Patent Licensing Seminar 2010.
Organized by the National Center for Industrial Property
Information and Training (INPIT), a well-known organization in
the field of IP management, this international conference washeld at Hotel Nikko Tokyo on January 25–26. During a panel
discussion on the “Current situation and future issues for IP
management in the R&D consortium,” a panelist from theInteruniversity Microelectronics Center (IMEC) of Belgium
representing Europe, a panelist from the Center for Information
Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) of
Northern California representing the U.S., and a panelist fromthe BEANS Project representing Japan introduced their styles
of IP management and anticipated future challenges. Since thetopic was relevant to present-day research consortia, there
were many enthusiastic questions from the standing-room-only
audience of more than 400 attendees, making the seminarextremely rewarding.

The five research centers of the BEANS Project (LifeBEANS Center, Life BEANS Center Kyushu, 3D BEANS Center,
3D BEANS Center Shiga, and Macro BEANS Center) and thehead office of the BEANS Laboratory have been conducting
R&D on biomaterial integration processes, organic material
integration processes, 3D nanostructure fabrication processes,
3D nanostructure fabrication for aerospace applications, andlarge-area continuous micro/nanostructure fabrication
processes and have been developing a knowledge database on
hetero-functional integrated device technology.
Through FY 2009, the BEANS Laboratory publicized its
research findings at national and international academic
conferences through 100 presentations and completedapplications for 23 patents. In just the fourth quarter of FY 2009
(i.e., from January through March 2010), our organization gave
presentations at such international conferences as the 23rdIEEE International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical
Systems (MEMS 2010 held in Hong Kong on January 24–28)
and the 3rd International Symposium on Micro/Nano Technology(held at Seoul National University on March 21–24). Some ofthe major conferences in Japan at which we presented theachievements of the BEANS Laboratory included the 24th Japan
Institute of Electronics Packaging (JIEP) Annual Meeting (heldat Shibaura Institute of Technology on March 10), the 2010
Japanese Society for Precision Engineering (JSPE) SpringMeeting (held at Saitama University on March 16), the 57 thSpring Meeting, 2010 sponsored by the Japan Society ofApplied Physics (held at Tokai University on March 17–20), the9th Congress of the Japanese Society for Regenerative Medicine(held at the International Conference Center Hiroshima on
March 19), and the Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan(SCEJ) 75th Annual Meeting (held at Kagoshima University on
March 18–20).
The BEANS Laboratory gave three presentations at MEMS
2010, an international conference held in Hong Kong this year.
The MEMS conference is the principal event on micro/nanotechnology in the world and is held annually, while being
rotated among the regions of America, Europe/Africa, andAsia/Oceania. The 23rd installment was held in Hong Kong since
it was the Asia/Oceania region’s turn to host the event. A totalof 75 oral presentations and 223 poster presentations wereselected for the conference for an overall acceptance rate of33.7%.

Hotel Nikko Tokyo, the venue for the International
Patent Licensing Seminar 2010

The Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre,
the venue for MEMS 20106