On October 27, 2016, Presiding Judge Misao Shimizu, Presiding Judge Makiko Takabe, and other members from the IP High Court visited the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) of Kyoto University and received technical explanations on iPS cells and other matters.

At CiRA, they received greetings from Director Shinya Yamanaka, received explanations on iPS cells and CiRA from Deputy Director Naoko Takasu (professor), and received explanations on iPS cell-related technology and patents from Head of the Intellectual Property Office Mina Asano (professor). They also toured the CiRA facilities and actually watched iPS cells using a microscope.

Through the above explanations and the Q&A session held afterwards, they got not only a better understanding of iPS cells themselves, but also a broad and deep understanding of various fields associated with iPS cells, such as concrete contents of research on regenerative medicine and drug discovery based on iPS cells, details of a project of “iPS Cell Stock for Regenerative Medicine” which CiRA is working on, and an outline of patents related to iPS cell-related technology and methods of using them.