[No. 226] Tatsuya Koyama

I am greatly honored to have this opportunity to contribute to the Keio University Alumni Raiou. I would like to introduce what I learned at the Keio University Faculty of Science and Technology and Graduate School of Science and Technology, and how I have applied that learning in my career.

After completing my studies at the Graduate School of Science and Technology, I joined Hitachi, Ltd., and worked in the Intellectual Property Division (the so-called "IP department") for 15 years. I then moved to a U.S. law firm called Mayer Brown, where I am now in my sixth year. I currently work as a litigation attorney in its Washington, D.C. office, primarily handling U.S. patent litigation.

I had always been interested in manufacturing things like robots, so during my university and graduate school years, I majored in mechanical engineering. In what was then the Maeno Laboratory, I conducted research on master-slave robotic hands, haptics, and ultrasonic actuators. During my time in the lab, my classmates, senior students, and junior students were all very close. When seminar presentations or thesis deadlines were approaching, we would all hole up in the lab, sometimes spending more time together than with our own families. At the time, I worked hard to submit papers to international conferences, knowing that if they passed peer review, I could present them overseas. I hoped to attend these conferences, half (or rather, almost entirely) with the feeling of choosing a destination for an overseas trip. Thanks to these efforts, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to present at conferences in Lausanne, Switzerland, and in Hawaii and Las Vegas in the United States.

With my professor at Lausanne station in Switzerland, holding roasted chestnuts

My supervising professor, Professor Maeno, was a former digital camera engineer at Canon. He had a strong patent-oriented mindset from his time as an engineer and encouraged students who achieved results in the lab to write patents. I was also fortunate enough to write a patent as a student, and the patent application based on my graduate school work was granted in both Japan and the United States. The patent attorney Professor Maeno introduced me to at that time was a wonderful person, and thinking that intellectual property seemed enjoyable was what inspired me to pursue this path. Furthermore, in the field of IP, it is particularly important to be well-versed in technology, law, and English, and a major reason for my choice was that I could leverage the English skills I developed while living in Los Angeles during my childhood. During my job search, among the companies hiring for specialized IP positions, I set my sights on Hitachi, Ltd., which had a particularly large IP department, and successfully secured a position there.

I joined Hitachi, Ltd. in 2004 and remained in the IP department for 15 years until I changed jobs. Partly because of my involvement with robotic hands during my time in the research lab, I was assigned to a department responsible for familiar consumer products such as mobile phones and televisions. Consumer products have long been a field with many patent disputes, and as a newcomer, I started by writing patent specifications as a so-called patent staff member. I gradually began to participate in patent license negotiations and eventually became involved in U.S. patent litigation.

Additionally, qualifications such as patent attorney and lawyer are relevant to IP work. I also began studying for qualifications as soon as I joined the company and managed to obtain my patent attorney license in about two and a half years. It was a demanding life, studying on weekday evenings while working and being cooped up in a prep school for about 10 hours on weekends. But after becoming a patent attorney, I started to think about studying abroad at a U.S. law school and obtaining a U.S. law license to work in America in the future. However, I learned that a law degree was necessary for that, so I decided to enroll in the correspondence course of the Keio University Faculty of Law while working. Although the general education credits I earned during my time in the Faculty of Science and Technology could be transferred, I never imagined that after writing my undergraduate and master's theses in the Faculty of Science and Technology, I would be writing another undergraduate thesis in the Faculty of Law as a working professional. After graduating from the Faculty of Law over the next four and a half years, I was fortunate enough to be selected for a company-sponsored study abroad program at just the right time. After a rigorous selection process that included taking the TOEFL and writing essays, I was able to study abroad at the University of Chicago Law School. The daily studies at law school and the subsequent U.S. bar exam were grueling, involving an amount of cramming I had never experienced before in my life, but I somehow managed to pass the New York State Bar Examination.

I've written it as if everything went smoothly, but for 10 years after becoming a working professional, while doing my job, qualification exams and academic studies were always on my mind. I clearly remember feeling a great sense of relief when I finally finished the bar exam and it was all over.

After returning to Japan from my studies abroad, I leveraged my knowledge and qualifications to handle many U.S. patent litigation cases at the company. Towards the end of my time at Hitachi, I had the invaluable experience of attending a jury trial in a U.S. patent litigation case and achieving a brilliant victory. This experience sparked a strong desire in me to practice more litigation in the United States, which can be called the home of patent litigation, and I decided to move to a U.S. law firm. After changing jobs, I was based in the Tokyo office for several years, partly due to the pandemic, but I later transferred to the Washington, D.C. office, which brings me to where I am today. I now work in the very heart of Washington, D.C. The Mayer Brown Washington, D.C. office is also located on a street lined with major law firms.

This is the exterior of the office. It's a 12-story building, and the top floor is where our IP team is located. It was recently renovated and is very open, with a lot of glass.

This is a photo of the IP team at a recent office Christmas party. My boss and colleagues are almost all Americans. I work in a world like you see in movies and on TV, arguing with judges and opposing counsel in court alongside them.

Being encouraged by my lab professor to write a patent was a major turning point that set the direction for the rest of my life. Also, because my lab classmates and I had spent so much time together, we decided to try to maintain our relationships after graduation. Even after becoming working professionals, we continued to hold an annual one- or two-night "training camp" during the summer vacation, where we would go to hot springs or the sea, play golf, have barbecues, and catch up on each other's lives. Of course, these camps became difficult after I started working in the U.S., but I still meet up with my classmates, senior students, and junior students regularly when I return to Japan. In this way, I believe I gained priceless experiences and built lasting relationships through my time in the research lab.