Corporate News
Landscape Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Katsuhito Nagatake; hereinafter "Landscape"), a company supporting database marketing, has acquired an exclusive license for patents related to business cards held by Ricoh Company, Ltd. (Headquarters: Ota-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Yoshinori Yamashita; hereinafter "Ricoh"). This exclusive license allows for the identification and visualization of uncontacted individuals by using business card information in combination with external data.
Landscape will begin offering this feature, based on the exclusively licensed patent rights, along with its independently developed "Meishi Shogi" feature for visualizing unacquired business cards, integrated into the business card management tool "uMeishi *1".
About Exclusive Licenses
The details of the exclusive licenses acquired by Landscape from Ricoh are as follows.
| Patent Number | Priority Date / Retroactive Date, etc. | Patent Overview |
|---|---|---|
| Patent 6299498 Patent 6614255 |
2014/6/2 | Patent for identifying individuals not yet acquired by utilizing business card information and information from other media sources. |
| Patent 6369140 Patent 6683219 |
2014/5/30 | Patent for updating organizational information to distinguish between acquired and non-acquired business cards, and outputting data based on each status. |
| Patent 6550810 | 2015/3/16 | Patent for visualizing members of segments involved in target transactions within organizational information, and visualizing the achievement level of activities for those specific segments. |
* The aforementioned patent covers business card management functions that cannot be implemented by any party other than Landscape or third parties licensed by Landscape.
■ About "Meishi Shogi," a Visualization Feature for Unacquired Business Cards
"Meishi Shogi" is a feature that visualizes communication status by arranging client company contacts—including those not yet reached—and internal employees like pieces on a Japanese Shogi board. By utilizing data such as business card view counts and registration numbers, it represents the strength of connections through line thickness and color shading. This allows users to identify key figures within an organization by project, determine the shortest path to contact unreached individuals, and visually grasp communication patterns based on departments or job titles.
"Meishi Shogi" will be integrated into the business card management tool "uMeishi." (Patent pending)
■ Use Cases for Meishi Shogi
Traditionally, it is often difficult to contact a specific individual without a direct connection. With "uMeishi" equipped with the "Meishi Shogi" feature, users can centralize not only their own business card exchange history but also various information collected from other sources, such as trade shows, seminars, document requests, news articles, personnel changes, executive information from securities reports, interview notes, and web crawling data. By representing connections through line thickness and color shading, users can easily identify unreached individuals and determine the optimal path to contact target persons.
Furthermore, the system is designed to facilitate contact through these identified pathways. By integrating with the corporate attributes (such as industry and revenue scale) from "LBC*2," Japan's largest corporate master database provided by Landscape, and behavioral history (such as purchase/negotiation history and email click history) from CRM/SFA or MA tools via the customer data integration solution "uSonar*3," users can comprehensively grasp customer status, enabling more efficient sales activities.
■ Future Developments
Landscape aims to go beyond the scope of traditional business card management tools by integrating various external data at the department and contact level, thereby building an environment where many client companies can achieve more efficient sales operations. Additionally, Landscape will collaborate with Ricoh, which possesses extensive expertise in the office services business, to propose solutions in the SalesTech field, starting with the business card-related areas discussed here.
We have received an endorsement from Ricoh regarding the release of "Meishi Shogi."
Endorsement from Mr. Tadashi Furushima, Executive Officer, General Manager of Intellectual Property Division, Ricoh Co., Ltd.
At our company, we aim not only to utilize our patented technologies internally but also to actively provide them to companies that can leverage them more effectively, thereby returning value to society. This patented technology, which enables the identification of individuals whose business cards have not yet been acquired, was born from the perspective of users who manage numerous business cards in their sales activities. We believe its value will be significantly demonstrated by its integration into "Meishi Shogi." We welcome Landscape's decision to market "Meishi Shogi," which incorporates our patented technology.
*1: About the Business Card Management Tool "uMeishi"
This is a business card management application that utilizes "LBC," Japan's largest corporate master database with 8.2 million locations. It is the industry's first business card management tool that allows users to instantly correct and register data simply by taking a photo of a business card with a smartphone. It also provides a feature that automatically appends detailed corporate attributes.
https://meishisonar.jp/
*2: About the Corporate Master Database "LBC"
This is a corporate database built by Landscape that assigns an 11-digit management code to approximately 8.2 million business locations across Japan. "LBC" allows for the identification of not only corporate attributes such as corporate numbers, industries, and revenue scales, but also capital relationships (parent-subsidiary) and headquarters-branch relationships through its corporate code system.
https://usonar.co.jp/service/lbc/
*3: About the Customer Data Integration Solution "uSonar"
This is a cloud-based data integration tool that allows for the consolidation and management of various information related to customers. It incorporates Landscape's long-cultivated expertise in cleansing data of various formats, as well as the "LBC" corporate master database of 8.2 million locations built by the company.
https://usonar.co.jp/service/usonar/
* All company names and product names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
* Meishi Shogi was a feature included in SideSonar (new subscriptions ended in February 2025), which integrated with uMeishi; therefore, it is no longer available for new users. We are currently considering incorporating this functionality into other applications. Please contact us if you have any requests.
* The uMeishi service was discontinued in August 2025. The business card management application currently offered is mSonar, which features significantly enhanced functionality.
