On April 20-21 2006, the 14th Annual Conference on International Intellectual Property Law & Policy was held at the Fordham University School of Law, New York in the United States. Judge Ichiro Otaka from the IP High Court and Judge Masami Ichikawa from the Tokyo District Court participated in the conference.

The conference is hosted by the Fordham University School of Law (organized by Prof. Hugh C. Hansen.) This year, about 370 persons in charge of IP cases including judges, attorneys, government officials, and scholars from about 30 countries participated in the conference. Judge Otaka also participated in the 3rd Annual Asian IP Law & Policy Day, Recent Developments in Intellectual Property Law & Policy in Asia, which was jointly held by the IP Academy (Singapore) and the Fordham University School of Law.

The conference consists of a plenary session where all participants gather in the auditorium, and concurrent sessions that are simultaneously held at different venues by subject. The discussions held at the plenary session focused on “Multilateral Intellectual-Property Harmonization in a Conflicted World,” “Globalization，Law and the Courts,” and “Open Source.” At concurrent sessions, participants discussed recent topics and problems relating to legislative developments, court decisions and policy on patent rights, copyrights and trademark rights. During the lunch time, Prof. Alain Pompidou, President of the European Patent Office, delivered a luncheon address entitled “The EPO and the EU: the Road Ahead.”

Judge Otaka participated in the concurrent session entitled “Specialized Courts and Intellectual Property Litigation,” and spoke about the decisions by the Grand Panel of the IP High Court in the past year and the proceedings of the Grand Panel cases, under the title “The Intellectual Property High Court of Japan: After One Year--- A Look Back and a Look Ahead.” Also at this concurrent session, Judge Michael Fysh of the Patents County Court, London, made a presentation entitled “The Role of Specialized Courts in the PCC and Elsewhere.” In addition, Judge Pauline Newman of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Justice Nicholas Pumfrey of the Royal Courts of Justice, London and Judge Klaus Grabinski of the District Court of Dusseldorf made comments as panelists, and exchanged opinions with other participants.

Judge Ichikawa participated, as a panelist, in the concurrent session entitled “Globalization, Law and the Courts: Inevitable Convergence or Diversity?” together with Judge Newman, Justice Pumfrey, and Judge Grabinski. He also participated in the concurrent session entitled “Claim Construction” and made a presentation on “Claim Construction in Japan.”

The summary of the speech is available here(38KB).