Our Feature
I.Consistent IP-related services:
Sun・Group provides clients with a broad range of IP-related services. This includes organizing seminars, publications and other activities for staff training. Also, Sun・Group performs patent searches and provides strategic advice to corporations engaged in product development on how to manage, leverage, and further develop current patent portfolios. In addition, we prepare and prosecute patent applications before the JPO, resolve non-litigious disputes, and represent clients in litigation. Sun・Group drafts expert testimonies and written agreements related to intellectual property, and operates a marketplace for enhancing patent exchange among our clients. We alsoadvise our clients on how to enforce or otherwise leverage their current patents portfolios. One desirable aspect of these services is that our firm’s patent attorneys can provide opinions regarding patentability and possible infringement, based upon reliable search reports provided by specialized searchers at Nets.
Ⅱ.Experienced patent attorneys and engineers:
Sun・Group’s staff includes experienced patent attorneys who draw from a broad range of technical training in academics and industry to assist their clients with various IP matters. These attorneys are divided into well-defined practice groups according to technology and legal specialty.
Ⅲ.Lightening the burden imposed on inventors for new applications:
At Sun・Group we conduct our initial meetings with inventors in an efficient manner that is as little a burden as possible on the inventors, while still enabling our attorneys and engineers to develop a full understanding of the invention. As a result, more efficient and effective prosecution of patent applications is possible. At Sun・Group, professionalism is an important principle in all our services. Therefore, patent attorneys, rather than technical specialists, are responsible for alldrafting patent specifications, opposition procedures, nullification procedures, and other legal matters handled by our firm.
Ⅳ.Experience in patent disputes and patent litigation:
Sun・Group has represented clients in more than one hundred IP-related litigation proceedings. This is a remarkable number compared with those of the other firms in Japan. We have also represented clients in several hundred non-litigious IP disputes.
Ⅴ.Systematized work of Fujimoto & Partners and Nets:
Fujimoto & Partners and Nets work together to provide efficient and effective services. For patentability searches, Nets typically produces a thorough prior art search, which is analyzed by the patent attorneys at Fujimoto & Partners before drafting a patent application. Nets also provides right to manufacture, state of the art, and invalidity searches. Attorneys at Fujimoto & Partners examine these search results and draft non-infringement opinions, opinions explaining the state of the art in a given technical area, or invalidity opinions. Further, our attorneys routinely file reexamination requests with the JPO based on invalidity searches, or if a particular patent application has not yet issued, and submit the corresponding search results with the JPO to be made prior art of record in the pending patent application.
Ⅵ.Positive suggestions for client-oriented IP strategies:
In order to work closely with corporations and their IP sections, Sun・Group strives to understand each corporation’s needs, and to suggest IP strategies for the use of each patent application filed. Along with IP strategies created according to the client’s needs, we draft patent specifications taking into account not only domestic patent application practice, but also foreign patent practice. Therefore, our applications are tailored for both international and domestic filing. Sun・Group establishes a close working relationship with each corporation’s staff engaged in product development and IP-related matters. As a result of this contact, our attorneys and specialists provide unique suggestions for highlighting the importance of IP rights, finding patentable technologies, conducting patent searches and creating IP strategies before filingpatent applications.
Ⅶ.Contribution to the company’s cost management:
Sun・Group takes into account the cost balance of each corporation. We effectively and economically work for the company in order to contribute to the corporate cost management.
Ⅷ.Active support and consultant services:
Sun・Group thoroughly examines a corporation’s past intellectual property and business operations. In this way, we develop an understanding of how the intellectual property of the corporation is managed and implemented. Through active guidance, training, and consultation, we work to provide positive and effective IP support for the corporation.
Ⅸ.International services:
To meet the needs of domestic and foreign corporations, our specialized staff in the international section cooperates with associated firms in various countries.
Ⅹ.IP portfolio management strategy:
Sun・Group works closely with its clients to understand their IP portfolio management strategy, in an effort to more effectively allocate assets of the client to IP procurement, management, and enforcement.
