Sughrue Mion's Alan Kasper To Lead Intellectual Property Panel In Japan; Symposium Will Discuss U.S. IP Trends and Impact on Japanese Companies.

WASHINGTON & TOKYO -- Sughrue Mion, a leading global intellectual property law firm, today announced that Alan Kasper, a partner at the firm, will join Judge Randall R. Radar and Professor Martin J. Adelman as a panelist at a symposium, "The Latest U.S. Intellectual Property Trends," that will be held in Tokyo.

The event, scheduled for Monday, November 21 at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), will help Japanese lawyers and corporate leaders understand how U.S. intellectual property laws can affect their businesses and the resources and tools that are available to provide assistance. Attendees will also learn about the proposed changes to the U.S. Patent Laws, currently pending before the U.S. Congress, as well as recent changes in patent law through a series of case studies, including an examination of Phillips v. AWH Corp., which has had a dramatic effect on how claim terms are interpreted given both the intrinsic evidence and the use of dictionaries and other external sources, particularly on courts deciding patent infringement cases.

"As the world becomes increasingly connected, the need to win cases in multiple jurisdictions and across many cultures is critical," Mr. Kasper said. "The complexity of intellectual property law in the U.S. is considerable, and as we have for years, Sughrue is committed to helping educate our clients and others to help them understand the U.S. system, which will ultimately enable their businesses to prosper."

Last year Sughrue held two seminars in Tokyo for Japanese in-house counsel and corporate managers that highlighted the difficult and unique challenges that Japanese companies face when they engage in patent litigation held in the U.S. The firm's California office also sponsored an Intellectual Property Seminar in February that compared the U.S. and Japanese legal systems.

Organized by PRIP Tokyo: NPO for Promotion of Research on IP, the symposium will also feature Judge Randall. R. Rader, Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; Prof. Katsuya Tamai, University of Tokyo, RCAST; Hisamitsu Araki, Secretariat of Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters, Cabinet Secretariat; Yukio Nagasawa, Former Judge at the Tokyo High Court, and a lawyer at ABE, IKUBO & KATAYAMA; Prof. Martin J. Adelman, George Washington University Law School; and Junji Annen, Chief Executive Director at PRIP Tokyo.

Admission to the symposium is free and it is open to the public. For more information, visit the event website at http://www.ipsymposium2005.jp/index_en.html for English or http://www.ipsymposium2005.jp/index.html for Japanese.

About Sughrue Mion, PLLC 

Sughrue Mion, PLLC, is one of the largest law firms practicing exclusively in the field of intellectual property law. Based in Washington, D.C. with offices in Silicon Valley and Tokyo, Sughrue specializes in litigating intellectual property matters in federal district court and before the International Trade Commission. Sughrue has obtained more patents than any other firm in the country. For more information please visit www.sughrue.com.