Ryoichi Mimura is a partner at Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu.  He principally advises clients regarding a wide variety of intellectual property matters (patent, utility model, design right, copyright, unfair competition prevention and trade secret protection) including IP infringement litigation, invalidation procedures, IP dispute counseling and license negotiations.

Mr. Mimura has a strong expertise, particularly in handling patent, copyright and trademark infringement litigation and employee-invention compensation cases, based upon the extensive knowledge and experience he acquired during his 30-year judgeship prior to joining the firm.

Mr. Mimura has published numerous articles and frequently lectures nationally and internationally on IP issues.  Also, Mr. Mimura is fluent in German and is knowledgeable about German law related matters, as he engaged in two years of judicial research at the University of Cologne, Germany, during his judgeship.

He graduated with an LL.B. from the University of Tokyo in 1977.  In 1979, he was appointed Assistant Judge of the Tokyo District Court.  In 1981, he was sent by the Supreme Court of Japan to the University of Cologne, Germany for two years of judicial research.  He was promoted to Judge of the Tokyo District Court in 1989.  Mr. Mimura started his career as an IP expert in 1989 as Judge of the IP division of the Tokyo District Court.  In 1993, he was appointed as a Judicial Research Official of the Supreme Court to handle IP related cases.  From 1998 to 2005 he served as Presiding Judge of the Intellectual Property Division of the Tokyo District Court.  He worked as a Judge of the Intellectual Property High Court (IP High Court) in Tokyo from 2005 to 2008, and as a Judge of the Tokyo High Court from 2008 to 2009.  Mr. Mimura joined Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu in August 2009.

Mr. Mimura is a member of the Copyright Law Association of Japan, Japan Association of Industrial Property Law and German-Japanese Association of Jurists.