AOYAMA & PARTNERS was founded in 1965. From its early days, the firm worked on many international cases thanks to its strong capabilities in the pharmaceutical field, and was involved in numerous intellectual property lawsuits both inside and outside Japan. The AOYAMA of today is a general patent attorneys' firm that has patent attorneys who are specialists in a range of areas including mechanical, electrical, chemical, and life sciences, as well as in the design and trademark fields. Thanks to this, we are able to respond to the diverse needs of our clients. Using our own proprietary computer systems that we have developed in conjunction with a software development company, we engage in painstaking deadline management, earning a great deal of trust from our clients.
Highly experienced attorneys with a diversity of specialisms
We are one of Japan's largest IP law firms, with a total staff of approximately 300 professionals, including over 100 patent attorneys. We cover all sectors ranging from mechanical, electrical, chemical and life sciences, to design and trademarks. This give 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.
Vast experience in international applications and lawsuits
AOYAMA has a huge wealth of experience through our handling of 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 cuttingedge 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.
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 a personal touch and that is consistent. We always back our contact people up with teams that are made up of a flexible mix of personnel so that we can best serve our clients with regard to each case’s particular circumstances. Our team approach enables us to handle urgent tasks, international IP litigations and the like better, and it even allows 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 it is times like this when AOYAMA’s strength can really make a big difference as we have the capability to form cross-disciplinary teams to handle such cases. As a rule, we often form teams with a mix of attorneys from different generations as we find that doing so allows us to build long-term and seamless relationships with our clients.
Highly Secured Docketing System
Based on the knowledge and know-how we have built during our 50 years-plus 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 worldwide we file applications. As 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.
AOYAMA’s extensive worldwide network of partner firms
We boast a global network comprising many general law firms and IP law firms from the world over that we have developed based on our 50 years-plus of experience. We have the capability to rapidly obtain IP information from all over the world, and immediately reflect such information in 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.
Last updated 3rd June 2020
