Access Co., Ltd. (株式会社ACCESS) is a Japanese embedded-software company headquartered in Kanda Neribei-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo. Its corporate history dates establishment to February 1984, when it was founded as Yugen Kaisha Access (some financial data providers list 1979, reflecting an earlier founding entity). It is publicly traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime Market under securities code 4813, following a February 2001 IPO on the TSE Mothers market. It is not a subsidiary. Consolidated net sales were ¥19,215 million for the fiscal year ended January 2026, with an operating loss; consolidated headcount was 795 as of January 31, 2026. Reported major shareholders include individual investor Tatsuro Kiyohara (~33%) and NTT (~14%).
Operations. Access develops and licenses software for connected devices, operating through three segments: IoT, Web Platform, and Network. Its principal product family is the NetFront embedded browser line (NetFront Browser BE/NX, automotive HTML5 engines, HbbTV solutions, NetFront Console), used in smart TVs, set-top boxes, game consoles, and in-vehicle infotainment. It also offers ACCESS Twine multiscreen and in-car content platforms, PUBLUS digital publishing/EPUB tools, and IoT gateways and platforms (NetFront Agent, ACCESS Connect). Network operating systems OcNOS, VirNos, and ZebOS are sold through its U.S. subsidiary IP Infusion Inc. It is an operating company, not a shell licensor.
Litigation posture. In the tracked data Access appears once, as a defendant (0 plaintiff, 0 other defendant cases) — but it is not a typical NPE target. Access owns a substantial patent portfolio, acquired in part through its 2005 purchase of PalmSource (200+ patents, mostly mobile-device software). In 2009 it exclusively licensed patents to Acacia Patent Acquisition LLC, an Acacia Research Corp. subsidiary, which assigned enforcement rights to SmartPhone Technologies LLC.
Notable case. Futurewei Technologies, Inc. et al. v. Acacia Research Corp. et al. (C.D. Cal., Judge Guilford, filed April 4, 2012; Fed. Cir. No. 2013-1090, 737 F.3d 704 (2013)). After SmartPhone sued Huawei in the Eastern District of Texas, Huawei filed a declaratory-judgment action in California naming Access, Acacia, and SmartPhone. The district court dismissed; the Federal Circuit affirmed under the first-to-file rule.