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International Committee Trip to Thai, Vietnam, and Indonesia
JIPA's International 4th Committee sent an investigation team consisting of 6 members to Thailand(Bangkok), Vietnam(Hanoi), and Indonesia(Jakarta) during December 11 to 18, 2016, and held opinion & information exchange meetings with 9 local legal offices.
ASEAN countries comprise an important area for Japanese companies considering their market size and expected roles as manufacturing and R&D bases. Through ASEAN Blueprint, etc., we expect their legislation systems to be more easily used.
However, there are still various difficulties like uncertainty of information and lack of experience, and thus we further need to make good use of local attorneys' offices. In non-English speaking countries, in particular, light has been shed on problems such as filing patent applications and conducting prosecution in the local language, the possibility of potential mistranslation, and insufficiency of English information in the database offered by the patent office.
The team's visit to local offices enabled us to find the points to consider when assessing and using local law firms and obtain information important for Japanese companies to conduct IP activities smoothly in those countries.
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[Update 2017-03-06 ]
