SUGIMURA & Partners

 The firm: SUGIMURA & Partners is a leading intellectual property law firm in Japan. The firm was founded in 1923 initially as SUGIMURA International Patent & Trademark Attorneys, and has been relaunched as of 1 March 2017 as SUGIMURA & Partners, with enhancement of its legal services. SUGIMURA has earned a reputation for high quality and is repeatedly ranked among the top Japanese patent and trade mark firms. It has offices in Japan and the US, providing convenient IP services to both domestic and international clients.

Areas of practice: SUGIMURA represents Japanese and international clients in patent, design, and trade mark prosecution, trial and appeal proceedings before the JPO, counseling and opinion work, due diligence, unfair competition and litigation and dispute resolution matters in Japan. The firm’s clientele ranges from single inventors and start-ups, to well established academic institutions and multinational corporations from all sectors of the global economy.

SUGIMURA delivers results-oriented solutions and offers customised services tailored to clients’ needs. It ensures close collaboration among its practice groups in order to provide clients with comprehensive multidisciplinary patent and trade mark protection across industry sectors. SUGIMURA’s attorneys combine legal insight, technical expertise, and business acumen to deliver practical solutions and strategies for intellectual property protection in Japan.

SUGIMURA has earned an international reputation for quality in Japanese IP practice and is repeatedly ranked among top Japanese patent and trade mark law firms. Its patent and trade mark attorneys possess expertise in virtually every technology sector.

SUGIMURA’s attorneys are not only skilled in the nuances of intellectual property laws and regulations; they are also technical experts in virtually every industry. SUGIMURA’s attorneys have years of experience working in-house at major corporations as researchers, engineers, and IP professionals. SUGIMURA also has attorneys who have served for decades at the Japanese Patent Office (JPO). This combination of expertise allows it to understand the perspectives of corporations and patentees as well as the JPO, enabling it to deliver practical and effective solutions to further client’s business objectives.

In order to better serve its foreign clients, SUGIMURA established a regional office in Palo Alto, California, the heart of Silicon Valley. Having a US presence allows SUGIMURA to offer better accessibility covering a wider range of time zones for foreign clients. SUGIMURA’s Silicon Valley and Tokyo offices work together seamlessly to deliver tailored solutions and around-the-clock service.

SUGIMURA’s attorneys are active in their community, presenting on topics regarding Japanese IP practice at in-house client presentations, patent seminars, and law school classes. The firm also publishes articles on Japanese IP practice in magazines distributed around the world.