Publishers in Japan are concerned about whether the country’s copyright laws adequately protect against AI-powered search engines. An association run by Japanese mass media last year called for search engines owned by tech companies like Google and Microsoft to obtain consent from news organizations, saying that search responses often resemble news stories. 

Kyodo News reported that the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association analyzed AI search engine results and noted that such search engines sometimes return inaccurate responses and inappropriately reuse or modify articles. It called on the government to urgently review and revise laws related to IP. 

The association called out AI-powered search engine results in particularly, noting that traditional search engines provided links to stories’ original sources rather than summarizing information from multiple sources. 

In a report last fall, Kyodo News reported, “the Japan Fair Trade Commission suggested that companies operating search engines, which serve as gateways to news sites, might hold a dominant position over media companies, warning that if usage fees for articles were very low, it would pose a problem under the law.” 

A spokesperson for Google told the news agency that “Google’s services enable access to high-quality news and we have established long-term cooperative relationships with Japanese news organizations.” 

As technology continues to evolve, Japan will almost certainly be at the forefront, which suggests that there will be great demand for the professional services of intellectual property lawyers in Japan for local and overseas clients. In this issue, we pay tribute to the best of them by presenting this year’s Japan’s IP Experts list. We asked a large number of IP professionals in the region, who are mostly in-house counsel and corporate legal managers, about what they were looking for from their legal service providers, so as to understand better what clients need and want today. Based on these answers, we have compiled our list of the Top 50 IP experts in Japan, lawyers who can best understand what their clients need and provide them with the best practical advice. 

Nowadays, it takes more than a degree from a top-notch university and a couple of decades of practice for IP lawyers to convince clients that they are the best in the field. When looking for IP advice, clients would opt for outstanding lawyers who can also understand how IP impacts the rest of their business, and advise them with practical, real-world, and business-savvy solutions. Not only do the lawyers need to have sound knowledge of the current law, but they also need to perceive coming trends that might affect clients’ business. 

Our list is categorized with the specialized fields of the experts, including patents, trademarks, copyright, enforcement, licensing and franchising, media and entertainment, IT and telecoms, pharma and biotech, and IP litigation. A total of 50 top experts from 38 law firms are presented, including Japan’s largest IP firms and practices. Nakamura & Partners placed five lawyers on our list (Kei Iida, Yoshio Kumakura, Shinichiro Tanaka, Koichi Tsujii, and Kazuhiko Yoshida). Eight different firms placed two lawyers each on our list: Abe, Ikubo & Katayama (Eiji Katayama and Hiroshi Kobayashi); Anderson Mori & Tomotsune (Akihito Nakamachi and Masayuki Yamanouchi); Asamura IP (Masahiro Asamura and Yoichi Inoue); Hiroe & Associates (Masanori Hiroe and Takenori Hiroe); Mori Hamada & Matsumoto (Atsushi Okada and Yoshifumi Onodera); Shiga International Patent Office (Shinya Jitsuhiro and Yasuhiko Murayama); TMI Associates (Yoshiyuki Inaba and Shunji Sato); and Yuasa and Hara (Hiromichi Aoki and Toshiaki Iimura). In addition to the large law firms, as the legal market of Japan keeps on maturing, there are also many competent boutique firms arising. Among our top 50 list, 28 firms are represented by one lawyer. 

Most of the lawyers named to our list have multiple practice specialties. Many of them are litigators, while others concentrate on prosecution work or provide strategic advice.  

All of them have something in common: they are experts in their fields and, in one way or another, they provide extra value for their clients. They are Asia IP’s Japan IP Experts.
– GREGORY GLASS 

Japan’s IP Experts is based solely on independent editorial research conducted by Asia IP. As part of this project, we turned to thousands of in-house counsel in Japan, Asia and around the world, as well as Japan-focused partners at international law firms, and asked them to nominate private-practice lawyers including foreign legal consultants, advisers and counsel.

The final list reflects the nominations received combined with the input of the editorial team at Asia IP, which has more than 50 years of collective experience in researching and understanding the legal market in Japan.

All private practice intellectual property lawyers working at law firms in Japan were eligible for inclusion in the nominations process; there were no fees or any other requirements for inclusion in the process.

The names of our 50 IP Experts are published here. Each IP Expert was given the opportunity to include their biography and contact details in print and on our website, for which a fee was charged.