NAGATO & PARTNERS

Nagato & Partners has been expanding with the addition of attorneys and technical professionals in various fields including electrical and electronic engineering, physics, materials, and chemistry as well as mechanical and mechatronic engineering. Our firm was reorganized in 2011 into plural offices and common back-office departments supporting these offices. Nagato & Partners has about forty members in total including more than ten patent attorneys, each belonging to one of the offices. Because of either a close partnership between these offices or each office’s independence, depending on cases or clients, Nagato & Partners can flexibly meet the wide range of clients needs.
Nagato & Partners currently has four offices as follows:

Nagato Patent Office, Aihara Patent Office and Okajima Patent Office principally handle patent and design patent cases, and Toba Trademark Office is responsible mostly for trademark and design patent cases. Nagato & Partners has four partners, two of whom are senior partners.
Department of Client Relations & Management, one of the back-office departments, was set up to develop new clients and also tailor our services to fit each client’s needs, based upon our philosophy that there is no establishment of our credibility without complete satisfaction of our clients. Department of Client Relations & Management welcomes your requests and consultation.

The profiles of the partners and the director of Department of Client Relations & Management are as follows:

Kanji NAGATO, president（senior partner）and founder, after finishing his master’s course in mechanical engineering at Kyoto University, engaged in research and development of aircraft jet engines at the Aeronautics and Space Division of IHI Corporation for about ten years, and established Nagato & Partners in 1985. The technical fields in which he has worked all these years include mechanical engineering, hydrodynamics, combustion engineering, heat transfer engineering, control engineering, production/processing engineering, and design and trademark. Kanji is a member of AIPPI, APPA, LES, FICPI, Japan Patent Attorneys Association, Japan Trademark Association, Japan Intellectual Property Association, and is qualified as an arbitrator/mediator at Arbitration Center for Industrial Property. The membership in these organizations has supported his longtime success as a practitioner in the intellectual property field. He speaks Japanese and English.

Shiro AIHARA, senior partner, completed a Bachelor of Engineering (mechanical engineering) at Tohoku University. He has eight-year work experience with Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., where he engaged in vehicle manufacturing technology development. Because of his skills acquired at Nissan in the fields of welding, industrial robots, transport, etc., Shiro excels at mechanics, automobile engineering, and mechatronics. He is a member of Japan Patent Attorneys Association, and speaks Japanese and English.

Misao TOBA, partner, obtained a diploma (Brevêt) in French language at Athénée Français (French language school), and then completed a Bachelor of Law at Chuo University. She developed her career as a multilingual secretary or translator at a language school, an embassy, and an exporting company. Before joining Nagato & Partners, Misao acquired hands-on experience in more than one patent and trademark attorneys firms, specializing in trademark and design. She passed the specific infringement litigation representation examination. She is a member of AIPPI, Japan Patent Attorneys Association, and Japan Trademark Association. She speaks Japanese, English, French, and Korean.

Nobuyuki OKAJIMA, partner , completed a Bachelor of Agriculture (forest product major) at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. In addition to the experience in a paper manufacturing company as an engineer, he engaged in Intellectual Property Division of Japan Tobacco, Inc., handling various cases related to tobacco manufacturing machines, material testing machines, vending machines, etc. He specializes in mechanics/mechatronics, electrical/electronics, chemistry, and material science, and is a member of Japan Patent Attorneys Association. His languages are Japanese and English.

Kanji INOUE, director of Department of Client Relations & Management, assumes the responsibilities in the development of new clients and the prompt respond to our clients’ requests. After completing a Bachelor of Applied Physics at Tokyo University, he worked for Bridgestone, a global tire manufacture, to engage in new plant buildings, tire production machine development, R&D of diversified products such as pneumatic actuators and robots driven by the actuators. At Bridgestone, he was also involved in worldwide marketing on a vast variety of products. Kanji gathered practical IP experience at both Bridgestone and patent firms. With this wide range of career and experience, he joined Nagato and Partners in 2010. He speaks Japanese, English, and German.