Amid prolonged civil lawsuits over intellectual property such as patents, Japan is studying the creation of a high court devoted exclusively to dealing with such litigation more quickly.
In the first stage of related judiciary reforms, the Lower House passed bills in May to revise the Civil Procedure Code and open the way for intellectual property lawsuits to be brought only before the Tokyo and Osaka District courts starting next year. The Tokyo High Court will be the lone court to handle appeals.
"Judges specialized (in intellectual assets) will be assigned to Tokyo and Osaka . . . to improve the level of examinations," said an official of the Cabinet's Headquarters to Promote Reforms of the Judicial System. The courts will unify precedents to make it easy for corporations and others to predict judgments.