How AI Is Reshaping Global IP Strategy for Japanese Companies
How Japanese IP teams can use AI to work more directly in English and see more clearly into foreign counsel's work, with Daniel Brown of FUJI Corporation.
Key takeaways
- Daniel Brown: Japanese companies are re-evaluating the size and focus of their portfolios, driven by new competitors from other countries, doubts that filing volume reflects real innovation, and the rising relative cost of foreign filings and annuities.
- Matthias Hofmann: in-house teams can now handle more themselves, but outside counsel remains necessary. The value shifts toward prosecution strategy built on the company's own strategy and its competitors' products.
- Brown: when an overseas case takes a different path than in Japan and the explanation arrives in a third language, AI works as a fast, low-cost second or third opinion before going back to foreign counsel.
- Hofmann: annuities rise every year and few companies know which patents are worth keeping. Reviewing a whole portfolio against products on the market becomes practical, so fees can be focused on patents that actually map to something.
- Japanese and English grammar can make claims and arguments come out "backwards" in translation. Brown sees AI as a way to have overseas prosecution explained to colleagues in Japanese, at a fraction of current translation costs.
- Hofmann: now that AI can read prior art in any language, limiting searches to English-language documents is no longer defensible.
Speakers
Daniel Brown, IP Specialist, FUJI Corporation
Dr. Matthias Hofmann, Patent Attorney and Partner, Boehmert & Boehmert; founder of PatentMaker, now part of DeepIP
FX Leduc, CEO, DeepIP
Gene Quinn, Founder, IPWatchdog (moderator)
This session covers drafting practice and tooling. It is not legal advice.
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