SERVICES
Sanada Patent Firm offers following services.
PATENTS AND UTILITY MODELS
To file applications for patents or utility models, our firm conducts interviews with our clients to grasp the nature of their inventions and ideas. Then, we prepare high-quality application documents and take the necessary procedures as a representative. In addition, we support prosecution for grant, maintenance, and management of rights after the grant.
Among industrial property rights, our firm mainly offers services for acquiring and maintaining domestic and foreign “patents”.
SERVICES RELATED TO TECHNICAL STANDARDS
Services related to technical standards include essential patent evaluation (so-called SEP (Standard Essential Patent) evaluation) for determining whether or not a particular patent invention is essential for a target technical standard.
For many years, our firm has been dealing with a number of cases regarding the essential patent evaluation for wireless communication standards such as 3G, digital terrestrial television broadcasting standards, etc. In addition to such evaluation, we have been providing consulting services for acquiring SEPs.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGNS
To file applications for designs, we conduct interviews with our clients to grasp the characteristics of the designs, the functions, and usage of the products provided with the designs, etc. Then, we propose the optimal application type (partial design, related design, secret design, design for a set of articles, graphic image design, etc.), carry out preliminary searches, and take the necessary procedures as a representative.
After the applications are filed for the designs, various notifications may be issued from the Japanese Patent Office. For example, if a notice of reasons for rejection is issued, we analyze the reasons and prepare a response in line with requests from our clients in hopes of obtaining a grant. Further, if a notice of grant is issued, we promptly report it to our clients and proceed to the payment of the registration fee and management of the deadlines for the design annuity thereafter.
The revision of the Japanese Design Law in 2020 has expanded the protection scope of designs. For example, regarding a design of a graphic image, the former law only accepted the application for a partial design of the article on which the graphic image is displayed, but the revised law accepts the graphic image itself as the protection scope. Our firm handles those applications for the designs that have been newly added to the protection scope.
TRADEMARKS
To file applications for trademarks, we conduct interviews with our clients on the applicable commodities and services as well as the aspects or the likes of the trademarks. Then, we conduct preliminary searches to judge the availability of registration and the risks of disputes on using the trademarks. In the event of filing the applications, we take the necessary procedures accordingly.
After the applications are filed for the trademarks, various notifications may be issued from the Japanese Patent Office. For example, if a notice of reasons for rejection is issued, we analyze the reasons and prepare a response in line with requests from our clients in hopes of obtaining a grant. If a notice of grant is issued, we promptly report it to our clients and proceed to the payment of the registration fee and management of the renewal deadlines thereafter.
PATENT SEARCH, IP LANDSCAPE®
“IP Landscape” provides bird’s-eye views of current states, future outlooks, or the likes for research and development and/or management strategy based on intellectual property information.
In order to play a role in the IP landscape activities of our clients, our firm researches and analyzes the intellectual property information to prepare “visualized” graphs, whereby we cooperate with our clients in creating materials to be provided to senior management. Examples of the “visualized” materials include time-series charts, pie charts, and bubble charts, as well as graphs such as new-entry/retire maps (application start time and application end time), co-occurrence networks (co-applicants and co-inventors), heat maps (indicating in which year each applicant has frequently filed applications, by using different colors), and three-dimensional maps.
We also conduct “prior art searches” for filing patent applications, “trend searches” for determining directions of development, and “invalidity material searches” for invalidate obstructing patents.
Appraisal
“Appraisal” primarily refers to the evaluation conducted by patent attorneys as to whether a product or service infringes rights (patent scope appraisal), whether the right of own company’s patent is valid (validity appraisal), or whether the right of another company’s patent is invalid (invalidity appraisal).
Our firm has a track record in various types of appraisal including patent scope appraisal, validity appraisal, and invalidity appraisal.
Instead of or in addition to preparing a written opinion that describes the result of the appraisal in detail, we can prepare a simple written opinion upon requests from our clients.
Consultation and Others
Our firm has advisory contracts with major corporations and SMEs. We give consultation and advice on intellectual property rights, conduct training on intellectual property laws (patents, utility models, industrial designs, and trademarks) using PowerPoint, and provide graphs that “visualize” the results of patent searches and analysis.
We also undertake services outsourced from companies without departments specialized in intellectual property. Namely, just like any intellectual property departments in companies, we take on activities from cultivating inventions to filing the patent applications, conducting patent searches, managing applications, etc., as well as providing consultation, advice, training, and patent searches related to intellectual property rights.
Registered Trademark of the Sanada Patent firm
The trademark application was filed on August 10, 2007 and registered on August 22, 2008.
This registered trademark is a graphic trademark that contains the consonants of SANADA, “SND” to represent green leaves.
