Cross-border enforcement of intellectual property: Japanese law and practice

This chapter focuses on specific matters related to the cross-border enforcement of intellectual property (IP) in Japan. Section 2 introduces IP policy changes since the turn of the millennia. The improvement of institutional setting has been a lengthy process which permeated through various levels of the objective to build Japan as the IP-based nation. Section 3 provides an overview of the main principles and recent court practice concerning the adjudication of cross-border IP disputes (jurisdiction and choice of law). Section 4 discusses specific IP enforcement issues with regard to goods in transit and customs procedures as well as criminal sanctions for IP infringements. Section 5 briefly addresses two legislative proposals prepared by Japanese legal experts with an objective to advance the knowledge concerning private international law aspects of IP. Section 6 concludes. Having experienced the rapid expansion of national economy in the seventh and eighth decades of the 20th century, from 1986 Japan was trapped in the shackles of the bubble burst. Many expected that the economic stagnation which lasted during the so-called “lost decade” would come to an end when Junichiro Koizumi was elected to be the Prime Minister of Japan in 2001. As part of various measures to boost the Japanese economy, Koizumi’s Government coined the concept of “Japan as an IP-based nation,” which established the foundations for remarkable developments in the country’s public and private sectors.