JAPAN Trends and Developments
Trends and Developments Contributed by: Seiro Hatano, Rikiya Sato, Keiichiro Umino and Tomohiro Kuribayashi TMI Associates
TMI Associates has grown from its establish - ment 30 years ago and its original 11 members to become the second-largest law firm in Japan, with more than 720 attorneys, including patent/ trade mark attorneys, based in 17 offices. TMI has comprehensive transactional and dispute resolution capabilities, a distinctive regulatory focus and a renowned IP practice. In addition to the firm’s locations in Japan, TMI has over - seas bases in Cambodia, China, France, Indo -
nesia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, the UK and the USA, and has desks focused on Brazil, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico and the Philippines. TMI’s unique and unparalleled abil - ity to form collaborative teams combining law - yers as well as patent and trade mark attorneys has enabled it to become a leading law firm in Japan and worldwide in the practice areas sur - rounding IP, media, sports, entertainment, and telecommunications and technology.
Authors
Seiro Hatano is a partner at TMI Associates whose practice covers contentious and non- contentious IP-related work, with particular focus on trade marks and unfair competition,
Rikiya Sato is a partner at TMI Associates, and his practice focuses on IP matters
(especially trade marks, design, copyright, unfair competition and trade secrets). He has a vast amount of experience in invalidation and cancellation proceedings, business negotiations and IP infringement litigation. Notably, he has a wealth of experience earned from working in the Intellectual Property Policy Office of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry as a fixed-term government officer from 2007 to 2010. He has also been a lecturer on IP Law at Keio Law School since 2020. Such experience enables Rikiya to offer his clients highly specialised services for a variety of IP matters.
including trade secrets. He has considerable experience with contentious work, including litigation representing foreign-based clients. In addition, he has expertise in IP transactions for brand management through licensing and M&A. Mr Hatano has experience in trade secrets and copyright disputes, and his work also covers a wide range of sectors, including the TMT sector and protection of industrial data. He has worked at the Intellectual Property Policy Office in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of the Japanese government.
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