Kotlin protected static function behaves differently as in Java

Language Design
3

I think I’ve found a slightly more elegant example than making it public. However, this seems very hacky and unintended by design.

open class A(protected val number: Int) {

    companion object {

        @JvmStatic
        protected val A._number
            get() = number
    }
}

class B private constructor(number: Int) : A(number) {

    companion object {
        @JvmStatic
        fun createFromA(a: A) = B(a._number)

    }
}

Could someone please shed some light on what the difference between Java-protected and Kotlin-protected visbility is?