Firm Name: Shiomizaka
Jurisdiction: Japan
Practice Area: Patent Law
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Professional Biography:
Leaders in Law endorses Hajime Watanabe as our exclusively recommended Patent Law expert in Japan. If you wish to get in touch with Hajime please use the contact information provided above.
Hajime Watanabe is one of the founding partners of Shiomizaka (formerly STW & Partners). His main areas of practice are antitrust and competition laws, dispute resolution and intellectual property litigation. He has also assisted a number of clients with antitrust aspects in their commercial transactions and the establishment of compliance structures based on his extensive experience in cases in Japan and other jurisdictions. Peers and clients alike appreciate his commercial mindset, which appeals to business people. He has been recommended as a leading individual by Intellectual Asset Management’s IAM Patent 1000 – The World’s Leading Patent Professionals for nine consecutive years (2012–2020), as a leading individual in the sector of intellectual property for 10 consecutive years (2010–2020) by Chambers Asia, as a best lawyer in the sector of intellectual property for 12 consecutive years by Best Lawyers (2009–2020), as one of the most highly acclaimed legal experts in Japan for dispute resolution by Asialaw Leading Lawyers for six consecutive years (2013–2018).
He obtained an LLB from the University of Tokyo in 1985 and was admitted in Japan to the Daini-Tokyo Bar Association in 1987. He obtained an LLM from the University of Illinois, College of Law, in 1993. Mr Watanabe joined Mori Sogo (now Mori Hamada & Matsumoto) in 1987. He worked at Jenner & Block in Chicago from 1993 to 1995 and at the US Federal Trade Commission in Washington, DC in 1995. In 1994 Mr Watanabe was admitted in Illinois (as a foreign consultant) at the Chicago Bar Association and in New York at the New York Bar Association, and he is a member of the American Bar Association and the American Intellectual Property Law Association. He established STW & Partners in 2007.
Firm Description:
Our principal goal is to obtain the best possible outcome for our clients. While that might sound obvious, it is easier said than done in today’s complex and constantly changing environment. We are not satisfied until we have realized the best interests of our clients by having a clear understanding of the background of each matter, clarifying and investigating the points at issue, making a convincing case, and succeeding in lawsuits or negotiations with the parties involved. We believe that the ability to provide the most effective legal advice is significantly enhanced by our flexible viewpoints, clear thinking, expertise, experience, mobility, communication skills, ability to respond to changes, and unbending sprit.
At Shiomizaka, we recognize the significance of teamwork. By combining the wealth of the highly specialized knowledge and experience that each attorney brings to the firm, we are able to provide innovative legal advice in a flexible and effective manner that is tailored to each individual matter while maintaining a broad perspective unfettered by any one particular field. We constantly strive to achieve extraordinary results for our clients as their most reliable advisor.
Practice Areas
Our firm offers a wide range of legal services, including provision of legal advices with respect to the management and organization of a company, multi-national and cross-border transactions, general corporate matters, IP, IT/IoT/AI, media/entertainment, M&A, anti-trust law matters, finance, complex domestic and international litigation and other dispute resolutions, insolvency, pharmaceuticals/healthcare and real estate.
