In trials as upper instance proceedings for examinations, reasonable judgments are made mainly based on decisions of the Intellectual Property High Court and the Supreme Court.

In this regard, the Trial and Appeal Department of the Japan Patent Office employs staff members called “Trial decision and Court decision Investigators” (this term may simply be referred to as an investigator(s) hereunder particularly in a below comment made by Mrs. Ohtake) who are appointed from among patent attorneys and attorneys at law.

These investigators support the work of the Trial and Appeal Department by studying issues in trial and appeal decisions, and providing advice from the perspective of the Code of Civil Procedure regarding trial proceedings.

Recently, Mrs. Ohtake, a patent attorney at our firm who also serves as a Trial decision and Court decision Investigator, contributed an article describing the role of such position (based on her own experiences) to the July issue of the “Patent” magazine that is published by the Japan Patent Attorneys Association.

The electronic version of this issue will be available for viewing by anyone via the link below around late August, so please take a read if you are interested (note that the article will only be available in Japanese).

Here is what Mrs. Ohtake told us when asked about the piece she wrote.

“If I were to highlight keywords from this article, they would be the “gap” between those who make decisions and those who are subject to decisions, and the “ingenious system” that benefits both the the Trial and Appeal Department and the investigators. Through duties such as attending oral hearings and analyzing trial and appeal decisions, I think that it is possible to boost my intellectual property expertise and align my thinking with some of the latest decision-making standards.”