On September 10-11, 2009, "2009 International Conference on Judicial Protection of IPR" was held in Chengdu, Sichuan of the People's Republic of China. IP High Court Judge Ken Asai attended the conference.

The conference is hosted and sponsored annually by the IP Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court of the PRC, Sichuan High People's Court, the Quality Brands Protection Committee of CAEFI and EU-China IPR2 Project． In this year, there were a lot of participants including the Vice President of the Supreme People's Court of the PRC, the Chief Judge of the IP Tribunal of the said court, many judges throughout the PRC, foreign judges from Germany, India, Japan, Taiwan, the U.K. and the U.S. as well as professors from the PRC.

This two-day conference consists of Session One ("Judicial System for IPR Protection"), Session Two ("Judicial Protection of Patent"), Session Three ("Patent, Standard and Antitrust" and Session Four ("Copyright Protection on Internet"). In each session, participants discussed relevant topics.

Judge Asai participated, as a speaker and panelist, in Session One. He made a speech under the title of "Reforms of Japanese IP Court System in This Decade," and talked about reforms of IP court system in Japan before and after the establishment of the IP High Court. He also exchanged opinions with other panelists (judges from the PRC, India, the U.K. and Taiwan, a German patent attorney as well as a Chinese professor) on the stage with regard to IP court systems in these countries.

The summary of the speech is available here(143KB).