UCHIMURA AGE (1908 - 1943)
KYOWA PATENT AND LAW OFFICE was established by Tatsujiro Uchimura on September 1, 1908. He made an inspection tour through the United States and European countries after retirement from the Japanese Patent Office. During the tour, he was stimulated by the patent systems and professional activities of patent attorneys in Western countries, and established "Uchimura Patent Office", the predecessor of KYOWA, at Ginza in Tokyo, in the hope of further development of the Japanese patent system.
Since the establishment, the firm was growing steadily. However, on September 1, 1923, just on the 16th anniversary of its establishment, the Tokyo area was devastated by a big earthquake of magnitude 7.9 and the firm building was completely destroyed by fire. The then Patent Office building was also destroyed by fire. Casualties of the earthquake reached about 140,000, but, fortunately, the members of the firm were all right. After strenuous efforts by Uchimura and other members, the firm reopened in the Marunouchi area shortly after the disaster and legal services were restored several years later.
FUJITA AGE (1943 - 1952)
The firm attained its 20th anniversary in 1928, and the scope of its legal services as well as the number of its members was increasing continuously until it grew into one of the leading general firms in Japan. In 1943, Jitsuo Fujita succeeded to the presidency, and the firm was still growing.
Owning to World War II, however, the firm had to curtail its scale. Furthermore, the firm building was destroyed in devastating air raids on Tokyo in March 1945, and the firm faced closure.
Nevertheless, the firm could pass through the crisis of closure by virtue of a rapidly increasing number of foreign patent/trademark applications after the war. A few years later, the firm was reinstated as a comprehensive firm comparable in scale to that in prewar days.
ICHIKAWA AGE (1952 - 1961)
Kazuo Ichikawa became president in 1952, and changed the name of the firm to "KYOWA PATENT AND LAW OFFICE". The name "KYOWA" was coined by combining the Chinese characters meaning "Collaboration / Cooperation" and "Harmony", and marked the birth of the firm that adopted an abstract name for the first time in Japan. KYOWA attained its 50th anniversary in 1958.
INOMATA AGE (1961 - 1985)
In 1961, Kiyoshi Inomata became president of KYOWA, succeeding Kazuo Ichikawa who devoted himself to the growth of the firm through the stormy age. At that time, Japan entered the age of high economic growth encouraging industrial development in various fields, and the number of patent / trademark applications increased rapidly while the number of the members of the firm exceeded 150.
KYOWA started activities that would contribute positively to the growth of Asian countries, such as acceptance of trainees from China, and cooperation toward the establishment and management of the APAA.
SATO AGE (1985 - 2001)
Kazuo Sato became the 5th president of KYOWA in 1985, succeeding Kiyoshi Inomata who endeavored to modernize and extend the firm.
With the advent of the intellectual property globalization age starting from the United States "Pro-Patent Policy", the "International IP Study Group" was formed within the firm, and the results of the study were compiled into a book entitled "The Intellectual Property in the Globalization Age". Moreover, KYOWA attempted to send its staff members to the United States or European countries for training, or dared to handle biotechnology- and other frontier technology- related cases.
In September 1988, KYOWA reached its 80th anniversary, and held a forum in commemoration of the anniversary.
Furthermore, KYOWA sent its staff members to the United States or European countries as trainees abroad to accumulate practical experience in dealing with global intellectual property cases.
In order to strengthen the network with China and other Asian countries, on the other hand, KYOWA developed a strategy of sending a delegation of lecturers or accepting trainees.
In 1981, the Japanese Patent Office took the initiative among the Patent Offices of other countries in the world in starting a paperless patent application project. Whether to introduce the paperless application system or not aroused heated discussion within the Japan Patent Attorneys Association. Yet, Kazuo Sato, the then president of the Association, settled the discussion and, eventually, the paperless application system was to be established for the first time in the world.
Due to this activity, as the President of the Japan Patent Attorneys Association, he received from the Prime Minister, in the spring of 2005, a testimonial for "his special contribution to the enforcement of the industrial property system".
Since 1986, KYOWA proceeded to a project for constructing an electronic system. In 1989, the Japanese patent application management system was completed, and, by 1996, the foreign patent, trademark, design and other application management system or the like was completed. As a consequence, total management of all the cases relating to intellectual property and highly efficient business management have been realized.
YOSHITAKE AGE (2001 - 2009)
In 2001, Kenji Yoshitake was appointed as president of KYOWA. The next year, Prime Minister Koizumi declared in his administrative policy speech that "Intellectual property should be the foundation of the national economy". This meant that the social role of patent / law offices would be more and more important.
Yoshitake, who has qualified as an attorney-at-law and a patent attorney and possesses abundant specialized knowledge and experience particularly in the field of intellectual property-related litigations, introduced more effective measures to cope with ever increasing litigations.
In the midst of an era in which intellectual property rights are highlighted as vital cards for business strategy or industrial competition, the best qualified and competent person was elected president of KYOWA.
Meanwhile, KYOWA also diligently pursued anti-counterfeiting activities for Japanese companies by utilizing the experience accumulated so far and the network already set up through Asian countries, attaining considerable results satisfactory to the clients.
As intellectual properties had risen to a very high position as companies’ assets, more secure and flexible information management was required accordingly.
Under these circumstances, KYOWA started to construct an in-house network system toward the end of 2001 in order to promote accumulation, sharing and communication of information while organizing stringent security measures.
In 2005, KYOWA established a project for computerizing filing data, and launched an epoch-making file management network system in 2007.
On 1st September 2008, KYOWA reached its 100th anniversary.
