Patent

Our attorneys and technical staff are skilled experts on technical as well as legal issues and ready to provide our services for existing and prospective clients. During the last ten years, SATO & ASSOCIATES has domestically filed more than one thousand patent and utility model applications, and internationally filed more than two hundreds utility patent applications. We expertize in a variety of technical fields such as electronics, telecommunications, computer technologies, semiconductors, optical devices, mechanics, and printers. We also handle fields such as medical devices, biotechnology related systems and methods, and chemical products and methods. For domestic clients, we generally prepare a draft of a specification after having an interview with the inventors, and file the drafted application in a form of patent or utility model. When the client requests a prior art search, we are able to provide our search result and concise opinion in time before the patent application filing. For international clients, we translate the patent specification and claims to be the best form in compliance with the Japanese patent practice prior to filing. Production of arguments as well as amendments to overcome rejection reasons in office actions is one of our expertise, and our best practice in general bring fruitful results on respective prosecutions.

Trademark

Trademark practice is one of expertise of SATO & ASSOCIATES. Since launching our website (http://www.tm106.jp[Japanese language only]) specialized in our trademark practice, we have filed a large numbers of trademark applications for clients of diversified fields who are seeking legal protection on their marks. Since the market has been widened as China, Korea, Taiwan, and other Asian countries grow economically, more clients in Japan as well as outside Japan seek protection in the widened economic fields. SATO & ASSOCIATES has an excellent network with overseas associates through establishment of connections in conference meetings of organizations such as INTA, APPA, AIPPI, and AIPLA, which are regularly held outside Japan. Our skilled services provide trademark searches with our concise legal opinion, preparations and filings of trademark applications, productions of amendments and arguments to overcome Examiner’s view, consultations and negotiations on issues arising from the trademarks and related subjects.

Licensing and Negotiations

SATO & ASSOCIATES provides legal services for promoting licensing on intellectual property such as patents, utility models, design patents, trademarks, copyrights, and related matters. Before entering licensing negotiations, we generally conduct research and analyze the case in multiple aspects such as persons, usages, markets, value of the right, etc. In some cases, we draft a contract for the proof of what parties negotiated.

Litigation

Importance of third party issues is highly regarded nowadays though these are time-consuming matters for the clients doing business in Japan. SATO & ASSOCIATES assists existing and prospective clients who are seeking legal solutions or legal protections. We successfully prevented a third party from accusing our client in a recent utility model infringement case and rendered the suit withdrawal before the Tokyo Intellectual Property High Court after receiving a successful result of invalidation of the incident utility model registration through an invalidation appeal before the Japan Patent Office.

IP Management

IP Management is another feature that SATO & ASSOCIATES provides in addition to legal services for clients’ satisfaction. Regarding annuity payments, recordation of transferring rights, changes of names, we corporate with multiple database managing companies and further execute a custom-made in-house operating system to keep tracks of each intellectual property case we have involved.