12th Annual Waseda-Penn Patent Law Conference

As in the previous years, also this year’s Waseda-Penn Global Patent Law Conference will feature discussing two important areas in patent law, one predominantly substantive area of law and one predominantly procedural. Part 1 will discuss recent developments in the area of novelty and non-obviousness determination by courts and patent offices. PTAB Chief Judge Boalick and Professor Wagner will introduce recent developments under US law, and IP High Court Judge Shoji, JPO TAD Director Furuta, and Professor Tamura will discuss developments in Japan. The second part of the conference will focus on court-initiated ADR. Courts in both the US and Japan provide different tools to encourage parties to settle patent disputes at different stages of the court proceedings. Judge Burke, Magistrate Judge from the District Court of Delaware, and Eric Stone, a leading US patent litigation lawyer, will share their respective experience presiding over or participating in dispute mediating initiated by US courts; Judge Kokubu of the Tokyo District Court will introduce settlement and mediation procedures employed by the Tokyo District Court. Former IP High Court Chief Judge Shitara will comment on these Japanese procedures. Finally, Professor Luke McDonagh will introduce ADR procedures established within the framework of the Unified Patent Court system. Both panels will be followed by a comparative panel discussion, and will provide the in-person audience with the possibility to engage in a Q&A with the panelists.

   RCLIP will stream the conference online via Zoom, and attendees can choose to attend in-person at Waseda University Campus or online. Unlike in the past, RCLIP will not distribute a print-out of the conference presentations, but will make panelists’ presentations available for download at the beginning of the conference.

Registration (in-person participation)