On April 12 and 13, 2012 (local time), the 20th Annual Conference on Intellectual Property Law & Policy was held at Fordham University School of Law in New York City, USA. On behalf of the IP High Court, Judge Hideko Takemiya participated in this conference.

This international conference on intellectual property (IP), which was hosted by Fordham University School of Law, celebrated its 20th anniversary this year. It attracted about 550 participants from 30 countries, including judges, government officials from patent offices and other organizations, lawyers, and university professors, all of whom are IP specialists. A total of about 200 speakers and panelists gave presentations and took part in panel discussions.
Judge Takemiya also attended the Conference on China's New Environment for Intellectual Property, also held at Fordham University School of Law prior to the Annual Conference.

The Annual Conference was comprised of a Plenary Session in which all participants took part, and a number of Concurrent Sessions on various topics held simultaneously.
At the Plenary Session, discussions were held under the titles of "Patents in the 21st Century," "Multilateral IP Issues & Policy," and "What is Legitimate IP Protection? Is it Possible in Light of the Anti-IP Backlash?", taking up topics such as the trends in patent practice in the U.S. and Europe, international harmonization, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Presentations and discussions were also held at the Concurrent Sessions, which were divided into sessions specialized in patent law, trademark law, unfair competition prevention law, copyright law, etc.

Judge Takemiya participated as a panelist in one of the Concurrent Sessions, entitled "The Judiciary and IP in the 21st Century: Views from the Judges," and explained the situation at the IP High Court, including the use of assistance from judicial research officials and technical advisers and the implementation of well-organized proceedings. She also participated as a speaker in the "IP Developments in Japan" session, in which she delivered a report entitled "Recent IP High Ct. Judgment on Product-by-Process Claims" and discussed the details of the recent judgments on the Grand Panel cases.

The summary of the speech is available here(289KB).