Philosophy

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What makes Aoyama & Partners different from the other IP law firms? Here, we highlight the strengths and characteristics that we possess as one of Japan's largest and most comprehensive IP law firms.

The Seven Advantages of Aoyama

  • 1

    Highly experienced attorneys with a diversity of specialisms

    We are one of Japan's largest IP law firms, with a total of approximately 300 professionals, including over 100 patent attorneys. We cover all sectors ranging from machinery, electricity, chemistry and life science, to designs and trademarks. This gives us the capabilities to tackle all manner of IP-related tasks, including applications, trials, and litigation both inside and outside Japan, in partnership with IP law firms in various countries. We also provide comprehensive IP services, including supporting universities and SMEs, doing research and making patent appraisals.

  • 2

    Vast experience in international applications and lawsuits

    Aoyama has a huge wealth of experience through handling patent applications in approximately 150 countries and being engaged in numerous lawsuits (several hundred Japanese lawsuits and about one hundred international lawsuits). We have been involved with many cutting-edge cases since our firm was established, while expanding our areas of expertise from life science technologies (which are prone to international disputes) to chemistry, electro-mechanics, and IT technologies. In April 2017, our legal department for handling litigation, disputes, IP consultation and the like was re-organized to strengthen our dispute resolution capabilities.

  • 3

    Let Aoyama’s hand-picked teams meet your case’s specific needs

    We generally assign at least one patent attorney to each client to act as liaison, to ensure that we can provide service that has both personal touch and consistency. We always back up our liaison with teams that are made up of a flexible mix of personnel so that we can serve our clients with best regards to each case’s particular circumstances. Our team enables us to handle urgent tasks, international IP litigations and the like better, and it even allows us to provide our clients with support for large-scale projects, such as ventures into new fields of technologies. A particular case may cross over into multiple technological fields, and in these situations Aoyama’s strength can really make a big difference, since we can form cross-disciplinary teams to handle such cases. As a rule, we form teams with a mix of attorneys from different generations since this allows us to build long-term and seamless relationships with our clients.

  • 4

    Highly Secured Docketing System

    Based on the knowledge we have built during our more than 50 years of experience, we have built and introduced a uniquely customized docketing system*. All of our procedures, deadlines, progress and more are recorded in the system by Formality Specialists not only for our Japanese cases, but also for all countries we file applications. Since all procedures are docketed in the system, they can be listed and printed out in a timely fashion to provide reminders to all members involved in each case. We have a business continuity site at a remote location from our offices, enabling us to quickly and easily recover in the wake of a disaster.*Conflicts of Interest: For us to act in good faith on behalf of our clients’ best interests, we have raised barriers within our firm to allow only those people in charge of each cases to have access to its data. This prevents personnel who are not involved in a case from having access to its data.

  • 5

    Aoyama’s extensive worldwide network of partner firms

    We are proud of our global network comprising many general law firms and IP law firms from the world over that we have developed based on our more than 50 years of experience. We can quickly obtain IP information from all over the world, and immediately reflect such information on our daily work. We can provide our clients with work that is up-to-date and top quality with respect to law changes and new procedures both inside and outside Japan.

  • 6

    Cross-Japan coverage from our Osaka and Tokyo offices

    Our headquarter is located in the heart of Osaka's Umeda district, from which we cover Japan's western region, which is called Kansai. Meanwhile in the country's eastern Kanto region, our Tokyo office is located close to the Japan Patent Office ( run by the Japanese Government). With these two offices as our bases, we are able to respond quickly to the needs of our clients all over Japan.

  • 7

    Presenting IP seminars

    It is our great pleasure to provide IP seminars for our clients. We provide such seminars when the law changes or a new procedure is introduced, or anytime our clients requests for one. We hold seminars in our conference suite, but we can also hold them wherever our clients require. Such seminars are presented not only by our own patent attorneys, but also by international patent attorneys. Because we have a global network association with many firms around the world, we have the honor of having guest attorneys at law and patent attorneys from our international partners almost every week of the year. Many of these international attorneys are happy to give presentations across a variety of topics, such as the hottest IP news in their own countries, or key ideas for obtaining strong patents. The seminars given by these attorneys from around the world are usually given in English, with Japanese translation provided when required. We are able to select topics and styles for seminars or lectures in accordance with requests made by our clients.

High-level technical expertise and support

PATENTS

1

Handled by the same attorney throughout a patent's lifeOur policy is that a single person in charge handles a patent case from its filing to grant, and they will also handle all cases belonging to a single patent family including applications in Japan and corresponding international applications. A single invention is taken care of by a single person from its creation to registration for all patent family applications.

2

Drafting global specificationsWhen we prepare the first application of a patent in Japan, we draft a specification which satisfies not only Japanese standards, but the standards of variety of other countries as well. When we file applications in foreign countries claiming the priority of the Japanese application, the Japanese language specification is translated to the necessary foreign languages without any special modifications. This is possible because the Japanese language specification already meets the requirements of foreign countries' standards. Of course, we can take over an application from any stage, e.g., filing an application in a foreign country claiming a priority of a Japanese application that has been filed in Japan, filing an application in Japan claiming the priority of a foreign application or application which has been filed in a foreign country, or entering a national phase in Japan based on a PCT application which has been filed in Japan or elsewhere.

3

Variety of services - discovering inventions, invalidation trials, infringement lawsuitsIn accordance with our clients request that we do so, we actively participate in their IP activities, such as discovering inventions and interviewing inventors. We also have strengths in non-typical, special procedures. For example, we handle the largest number of applications for the extension of pharmaceutical patent terms in Japan. Our clients also entrust us with invalidation trials before the Japan Patent Office, administrative lawsuits, and infringement lawsuits in jurisdictions globally. We implement the lessons we learned during litigation back into our prosecution work.

DESIGN

1

Design strategy proposals to suit your businessWhen a design is created by its inventor, he or she may think that the design which they created is the only design that needs to be protected. From the viewpoint of providing broad and strong protection, our design-field specialist attorneys will give advice to the design inventor including various design strategies so as to cover variations of the created design.

2

Design applications throughout the worldYou need talent and much experience to file a good design application, because the resemblances and similarities in a design are determined by human taste, which varies depending on era and region. Our design attorneys have built up a wealth of experience through many design applications and we have filed a great number of design applications not only in Japan, but around the world as well. In particular, we handle many Japanese design applications for our international clients. Our design attorneys will provide you with advice from a variety of perspectives so that you may enjoy the very best protection for your designs throughout the world.

3

Approach from both patent and designProducts sometimes may not be patented because they do not have a sufficiently inventive step from a technological viewpoint. In certain other cases, products may be patented, but their claims may end up being unexpectedly narrow, because the cited prior art documents are relatively close to the invention. In these cases, it is worthwhile to consider filing an application for design. Furthermore, products may be protected from both technological and design viewpoints. Then it is necessary to have both good patents and good design registrations. Our attorneys who are specialized both in patent and design will provide our clients with up-to-date and effective advice.

TRADEMARKS

1

Worldwide managementTrademark protection is vital anywhere your products may be distributed. That is why our trademark work can extend around the world. Our trademark team is highly experienced in trademark prosecution and maintenance all over the world, including in Japan, Europe, the United States, Asia, the Middle East, Russia, Latin America, Africa, and in the Caribbean. We can assist our clients with their trademark strategies and diligently address the variety of issues they face with a global perspective.

2

Long-term assistanceA trademark is a sustainable and prolonged property. The continuous use of a trademark increases its value. Trademark protection is not finished when a trademark registration is obtained; in fact, maintaining a trademark is very important as well. Each of our clients has one or more attorneys assigned to it as liaison to take care of that client's entire trademark portfolio regardless of case type or country. These liaison attorneys continuously assist our clients so as to meet their needs on a case-by-case basis.

3

Sharing the latest information across the entire teamThe trends in trademark-related examinations or decisions at the Japan Patent Office and the courts are always changing. We always need to seek up-to-date information so we can make analysis and assessments in an appropriate way. However, the amount of information that a single person or a small number of people can obtain is limited. Our trademark team shares the functional information and experience which were obtained by each team member, and regularly has study meetings. We at Aoyama always step up our efforts in cooperation with each other to provide our clients with superior services.

Representation in Japanese lawsuits: administrative lawsuits, infringement lawsuits, and more

Since our firm was established, we have been engaged in several hundred domestic lawsuits (including administrative and infringement lawsuits). We carefully analyze all possible measures from both technical and legal standpoints and, through in-depth communication with our clients, we strive to obtain the best outcome. Especially in infringement lawsuits, our patent attorneys collaborate with attorneys at law to propose a variety of measures to facilitate dispute resolution and make best use of our client's patent portfolio, such as filing post-grant-amendment trials and filing strategic divisional applications with a request for an accelerated examination.

International lawsuits

Since our firm was established, we have been engaged in about one hundred foreign court proceedings, including invalidation lawsuits, administrative lawsuits against decisions by the Japan Patent Office, infringement lawsuits, requests for preliminary injunctions and requests for preserving evidence before formal lawsuits. The jurisdictions we work in include the United States of America, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, China, Taiwan, Korea, Australia and Brazil.

We also have much experience in multi-jurisdictional patent litigation as well. In multi-jurisdictional patent litigation, we closely communicate with international attorneys handling counterpart lawsuits to ensure that arguments and constructions are consistent.