Domestic Patent Applications

NII Patent Firm is here to assist you in acquiring patent rights in Japan.  Our technical staff specialized in the fields of IT, Software, Business Models, Communications, Controllers, Electricity, Electronics, Semiconductors, Machinery, Physics and Materials will provide full support for your patent requirements.  Our staff is made up of university and advanced degree engineering graduates specialized in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Physics, as well as science graduates specialized in Physics, Biology and more.  The majority of our staff has worked at major electric, machinery and materials companies, as well as research institutions, and holds several types of technical qualifications (licensed electrical engineers, information processing engineers, wireless communications engineers, doctors of engineering, and so on).

With a wide array of technical know-how and patent administration experience, our technical staff will provide draft proposals for patent applications as well as advice on patent application strategy in order to secure patents for your valuable ideas and inventions.

Foreign Patent Applications

We can assist you in acquiring patent rights in countries and regions such as the United States, Europe, China, Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, India, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Hong Kong.  By maintaining a close relationship with the skilled local staff (patent agents and patent attorneys) of our foreign affiliates whose procedural authority is recognized by their respective national patent offices, we have a channel for carrying out patent procedures rapidly and accurately.

At NII Patent Firm, a third of our staff is made up of English and Chinese translators.  Our technical staff drafts detailed Japanese language patent specifications based on client interviews and meetings, and these specifications are translated into English and/or Chinese patent specifications by our skilled in-house translation staff.  By drafting Japanese language patent specifications and translating these into foreign patent specifications in-house, close communication between our technical and translation staffs ensures that we produce high-quality foreign patent specifications.

Applying for Utility Model, Design and Trademark Registration

We can help you acquire utility model, design, and trademark rights as well. In Japan, utility models are registered without examination.  Thus, aside from their value in ensuring exclusive rights, utility models are also valuable for their strategic use in early patent granting, defensive applications, sales promotion and more.  In addition, it is important to consider acquiring rights by registering a design for products with characteristic features in their appearance, as well as "visible" ideas (i.e. cases where technical characteristics are revealed through movement or operations that can be externally observed).

By specifying the product/service classification and applying for trademark registration, you can acquire trademark rights for the name attached to a product or service and, for as long as it is used by a business entity, this name can be used exclusively on a semi-permanent basis.

Consultation, Search, Appraisal

We offer consultation regarding rights acquisition for domestic and international patents, utility models, designs and trademarks.  We make recommendations with searches using databases such as patent office electronic libraries, PATOLIS (database service provided by Patolis Inc.), and HYPAT (database service provided by Hatsumei Tsushin Inc.).  Additionally, we provide Patent Search services to survey whether your product may infringe upon another, discovery of prior art documents which could invalidate rival patents, drafting of patent maps, appraisal of the possibility to obtain exclusive rights, possible infringements upon those rights, and more.

Patent Translation

We translate patents from Japanese to English, English to Japanese, Japanese to Chinese, and Chinese to Japanese.  We offer high-quality translation supported by our Japanese or Chinese patent attoneys.  We also offer reverse translation of Chinese patents (Chinese to Japanese translation and evaluation comments).  Additionally, our international patent agent and attorney affiliates may review specifications and claims.

Appeals and Licensing Contracts

Finally, NII Patent Firm provides patent procedures such as appealing for and receiving invalidation or cancellation arbitration, appealing for arbitration reversal as well as license negotiations and contract drafting.