On the surface, the convergence of the Japanese and U.S. systems of university- industry technology transfer is almost complete. Japanese national universities, which conduct most university research in Japan, have been incorporated as independent administrative since April 2004, although they remain under the purview of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). This was actually the fourth in a series of legal reforms that began in 1998 with the passage of a law authorizing the establishment of technology licensing organizations (TLOs) that could license some university inventions and channel royalties back to the inventors, their laboratories and their universities. Now as a result of these reforms, the legal framework governing university industry technology transfer in Japan is very similar to that in the U.S. Japanese universities now own nearly all inventions made by their researchers, including inventions by most graduate students and industry employees working in university laboratories.