On July 24, 2018, S&E sponsored a US IP seminar on the recent trends in the US Supreme Court’s and Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s decisions and their impact on the patent practices of Japanese corporations. The speaker was Professor Toshiko Takenaka who, while teaching at prominent universities such as Keio University Law School and Washington University School of Law, is involved in the acquisition and exercise of patent rights at Seed IP Law Group in Seattle. At the seminar, Ms. Takenaka explained the recent trends in US patent decisions related to the patentability, technical scope and exercise of rights for software development inventions, gene therapy, etc., and compared these trends with the practices in the EU and Japan. She also touched on how these trends in court decisions shape prosecution as well as the details to keep in mind when drafting claims and specifications.
On November 30, 2018, S&E and the EU-Japan Center for Industrial Cooperation...