manga company called k works

xThis is a sort of niche art-related question about the readymade manga character market.

a) Specifically, does anyone know about companies offering (or who offered) menus or catalogues of manga characters available for copyright sale?
b) Is there a way to research Japanese business directories over the internet, from afar?

I have been researching No Ghost Just a Shell by French artists Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno (it was in the 2001 Yokohama Triennale)
below are articles in English and in Japanese that describe the project. I know most of the story behind it, but basically they bought a manga character's copyright in 1998 and circulated it among other artists until retiring it in 2002. The important part I can't confirm is the company where they bought this character. I can't find any trace of it online, either from 1998 or now. It could be called:
kworks
k-works
k works

English:
http://www.mmparis.com/noghost.html

Japanese:
https://wired.jp/2002/12/19/%e6%97%a5%e6%9c%ac%e3%82%a2%e3%83%8b%e3%83...

c) Can anyone figure out if this company exists? Or if this company does not exist, does anyone have evidence that this type of company exists? Or maybe it was a type of service only relevant 20 years ago, no longer relevant?

If anyone has any idea, I would be grateful to hear, because it is sort of the origin myth of their project. I find it strange that it is repeated in every article about the project, but the actual conditions of this business are never explored. This has influences on the narrative of the project.
Thanks for your attention
Pepe