Whilst the Japanese legal system in the field of intellectual property rights was originally based on the German system, it has increasingly moved over to a US-style system in recent years. The time it takes for patent application to be examined is still long, although the Japanese Patent Office has made major efforts to bring this down.

The case law regarding the field of patent protection has also become closer to the US legal system in recent years, although equivalent patent infringements must be taken into consideration here. Under Employee Invention Law, it is generally only very rarely the case that an employed inventor has to be paid considerable compensation. WITTEWELLER have been working with well-known law firms in Osaka and Tokyo for many years.

The experts

Christian Steil
Stephan Keck