Yanagida & Associates, an international IP law firm was founded in September 1973 in Tokyo, and moved to the city of Yokohama, Japan, in May 1995. The size of the firm has been doubled since it moved to Yokohama. The offices are located in front of Shin-Yokohama Station, 16 to 18 minutes from Tokyo by bullet train (Tokaido-Sanyo Shinkansen). After the firm moved to Yokohama, it was ranked in the Top 10 of Japan IP firms in a Survey of the journal "Managing Intellectual Property" in October 1996. In the Success-rate Ranking among Japanese Patent Attorney Firms that received more than 200 Patent Office Decisions published in the May 1998 newspaper, it was ranked 17th among 160 firms. Among 45 firms that received more than 400 decisions, it was ranked as No. 3. |
The head of the firm, Mr. Masashi Yanagida, B.S. from Nagoya University in Applied Physics, was a vice president of the Japan Patent Attorneys Association in 1985-86, and is a member of AIPPI, INTA, FICPI, ECTA, APAA and JTA. He has been one of the panelists for the past five years in the CLE International Seminar for "Intellectual Property Protection in Pacific Rim Countries" which was held annually in the U.S. for U.S attorneys. |
The firm has 63 staff members including fourteen patent attorneys and 33 technical staff who are handling patent or trademark applications and prosecutions, and covers all fields of technologies including computer software and biotechnology. The firm provides services in filing applications, prosecuting applications, filing appeals before the Patent Office, Tokyo High Court and Supreme Court, filing oppositions, giving professional opinions on infringement or validity, and conducting searches in the field of patents, utility models, designs and trademarks. The firm is equipped with a computerized patent filing system, a computerized patent file control system, a computerized patent and trademark search system, and facsimile and e-mail transmitting devices. |
All the patent attorneys and technical staff who are planning to become patent attorneys have been educated at highly ranked universities and are experienced in large industries in Japan, so they have good understanding of inventions. The courses they graduated from at university are; Electronics, Mechanical Engineering, Applied Physics, Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals, Organic and Inorganic Chemistry, Mining Engineering, Agricultural Chemistry, Information Technology and Telecommunication Engineering. The technical fields covered by the staff based on their experiences in industry and with the clients are; Electronics, Electrical engineering, Medical Instruments, Image display technologies, Data processing, Image processing, Computer software, Photography, Automotive, Mechanical engineering, Plastic engineering, Manufacturing engineering, Chemical engineering, Biological chemistry, Genetic engineering, Organic chemistry, Inorganic chemistry, Glass manufacturing, Ceramics, Fiber optics manufacturing, Laser diode, Semiconductor (Solid State Technology), Food science, Material science, and Pharmaceuticals. |
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