On November 5, 2015, 22 members of the delegation of the U.S. Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) visited the IP High Court. The visitors had a meeting with the judges of the IP High Court to exchange views and opinions, to which the judges of the Intellectual Property Divisions of the Tokyo District Court also participated. The IPO is an organization established in the U.S. in 1972 and consists of organizations (companies and other entities) and individuals retaining intellectual property rights. The purpose of the organization, which is composed of 200 corporate members and 12,000 individual members, is to represent the rights and benefits of its members as well as to provide education and other services related to intellectual property.

At the meeting, after the greetings from Chief Judge Ryuichi Shitara of the IP High Court and Mr. Lawrence Welch and Mr. Mark Lauroesch of the IPO, Chief Judge Shitara gave a presentation entitled “Litigating standard-essential patents in Japan”, in which he introduced the contents of the Grand Panel case of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. v. Apple Japan LLC and the situation of the Japan-U.S.-Europe mock trials at the International Symposium, held this year in April, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the IP High Court. Judge Koki Kamiya of the IP High Court gave a presentation entitled “Construction of a Product-by-Process Claim and its Validity”, and introduced the contents of the Supreme Court’s judgment related to product-by-process claims.

Following the presentations, from the IPO, Mr. Robert Siminski, Mr. Peter Lee and Mr. David Jones provided explanations on the precedents concerning patent eligibility in the U.S. while also mentioning the perspective of corporations. Mr. Todd Volyn provided explanations on the decisions concerning damages related to standard-essential patent infringement in the U.S. and the current situation in the U.S. based on recent cases. The explanations were followed by a lively exchange of questions and answers, which continued until the predetermined time, concerning the U.S. Supreme Court’s judgments on patent eligibility.