Harukuni Ito

Practice Areas

Harukuni Ito has more than 20 years of practice experience in litigation, arbitration, and commercial transactions involving intellectual property.

Harukuni has extensive experience handling patent litigation before Japanese courts and proceedings before the Japan Patent Office in areas including electronics, automotive, machinery, and pharmaceuticals. He also has represented clients before Japanese courts in litigation involving various types of unfair competition practices, including trade secret misappropriation, confusing indication of goods and business, imitation of the configuration of another person's goods, and infringement of business reputation. In addition, he has represented individuals in employee invention litigation and moral rights litigation.

Harukuni has particular experience in commercial law involving technology-related international transactions, such as technology/product licenses, research and development, and technology-based joint ventures.

In recent years, Harukuni’s practice has focused on commercial transactions and dispute resolution in the life sciences sector. He has handled a number of licensing, supply, co-promotion, and other types of transaction documents in the sector. He also has handled multiple international arbitration proceedings related to pharma license disputes.

Harukuni also represents clients in non-IP litigation and disputes, such as contract, labor, and shareholder derivative litigation.

He works comfortably with clients in Japanese and in English.

Professional Memberships

The Licensing Executives Society Japan (LESJ)

Publications

Getting the Deal Through - Pharma & Medical Device Regulation 2023, Japan Chapter, Law Business Research Ltd. (2022) (co-author)

Intellectual Property License Agreements – Industrial Technology (Patent & Know-How) (Nihon Kajo Publishing 2019)

International Copyright Law: a Practical Global Guide (Globe Law and Business 2013) (co-author)

When the Export of an Item that Meets Some of the Requirements of an Invention Constitutes Patent Infringement --- Life Technologies Corp v. Promega Corp., 580 U. S. _(2017) (IP Journal vol. 2. 2017)

Impact of the CAFC’s Permission on Patent Agents’ Privilege and Scope of Coverage (Chizai Kanri Vol. 67 No. 3 2017) (co-author)