On March 27-28, 2008, "16th Annual Conference on Intellectual Property Law and Policy" was held at Fordham University School of Law in the City of New York, U.S.A. IP High Court Judge Ken Asai participated in the conference.

The conference is organized and hosted annually by Fordham University School of Law． In this 16th conference, there were, as before, many participants concerned with IP law including judges, attorneys, government officials, and professors from the U.S. as well as Europe, Asia, and other various regions in the world. On March 26, Judge Asai also attended "5th Annual Asian IP Law and Policy Day" jointly held by the IP Academy (Singapore) and Fordham University School of Law.

The two-day conference consists of a plenary session and some concurrent sessions held by subject. In the plenary session, discussions were made on various issues of the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Trade Organization, the European Union and the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the concurrent sessions, participants discussed recent topics and issues relating to court practices and legislative developments regarding patents, copyrights and trademarks.

Judge Asai, on the first day, participated, as a panelist, in the concurrent session entitled "KSR and its Aftermath - Europe & Asia," and exchanged opinions with Judge Randall R. Rader of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and other panelists on the stage, with regard to the inventive step (non-obviousness) requirement in Europe and Asia.

Judge Asai, on the second day, took part in the concurrent session entitled "Japanese Patent Law Developments," and made a speech under the title of "Strict Scrutiny? IP High Court of Japan - Judicial Review of the JPO Decisions." In this speech, Judge Asai delivered the opinion that it is not appropriate to conclude that the IP High Court's scrutiny is too strict based solely on the high ratio of cancellation judgments on appealed cases against the JPO (Japan Patent Office) panel decision that dismissed a motion to invalidation of a patent.

The summary of the speech is available here(431KB).