1. Definition of Plant Factories 
2. Types of Plant Factories 
3. Pros and Cons of Different Plant Factory Lighting Sources 
3.1 Natural Sunlight 
3.2 Total Artificial Lighting 
3.3 Mix of Natural Sunlight and Artificial Lighting 
4. Patent Mining of Plant Factory Technologies 
4.1 Patent Search Procedure 
4.1.1 Selecting a Patent Database 
4.1.2 Identifying Search Keywords 
4.1.3 Data Selection 
4.1.4 Data Analysis 
4.2 Results of Patent Mining 
4.2.1 Text Mining 
4.2.2 Data Mining 
4.2.3 Relative R&D Strength 
5. Major Vendors' Development 
5.1 CCS Inc. 
5.1.1 Product Development 
5.1.2 Patent Deployment 
5.2 Fairy Plant Technology 
5.2.1 Product Development 
5.2.2 Patent Deployment 
5.3 Showa Denko 
5.3.1 Product Development 
5.3.2 Patent Deployment 
5.4 Panasonic 
5.4.1 Product Developmen
5.4.2 Patent Deployment 
5.5 Fujitsu 
5.5.1 Product Development 
5.5.2 Patent Deployment 
6. Tracking and Observing Highlights 
6.1 Market Aspect 
6.2 Industry Aspect 
6.3 Technology Aspect 
Appendix 
 

Figure 1  Lettuces in a Plant Factory 
Figure 2  Three Types of Plant Factory Lighting Source 
Figure 3  Example of a Natural Sunlight Plant Factory 
Figure 4  Example of a Total Artificial Lighting Plant Factory 
Figure 5  Facilities in a Total Artificial Lighting Plant Factory 
Figure 6  Example of a Plant Factory using Mix of Natural Sunlight and Artificial Lighting 
Figure 7  Plant Factory Technologies Patent Search Flow 
Figure 8  III's Patent Mining Platform 
Figure 9  Correlation between Top 5 Plant Factory Technologies by Patent Number 
Figure 10  Number of Plant Factory Patents by Assignee's Nationality 
Figure 11  Plant Factory Patents by Sector Share 
Figure 12  Plant Factory Patents by Field Share 
Figure 13  CCS' Plant Factory Products 
Figure 14  Fairy Plant Technology's Plant Factory Products 
Figure 15  Showa Denko's Plant Factory Products 
Figure 16  Panasonic's Plant Factory Products 
Figure 17  Fujitsu's Plant Factory Products 
 

Table 1  Comparison of Different Plant Factory Lighting Sources 
Table 2  Key Technology Types Identified Through Patent Mining 
Table 3  Top 10 Assignees in the Field of Plant Growth Technologies 
Table 4  Top 10 Assignees in the Field of LED Artificial Lighting Technologies 
Table 5  Matrix Analysis of CCS' Patents 
Table 6  Matrix Analysis of Fairy Plant Technology's Patents
Table 7  Matrix Analysis of Showa Denko's Patents 
Table 8  Matrix Analysis of Panasonic's Patents 
Table 9  Matrix Analysis of Fujitsu's Patents 
Table 10  Major Vendors in the Plant Factory Industry
Table 11  Costs and Revenue Sources of Different of Plant Factory Types
Table 12  Price Comparison between Vegetables Grown in Plant Factories and on Conventional Farmlands 
Table 13  Optimal Ratio of Multi-Wavelength LED Light for Various Vegetables 
Table 14  Overview of Japanese Vendors' Patents Related to Plant Factory Technologies