As a boutique firm that specialises in patent litigation, City-Yuwa Partners is no stranger to tackling some of the most complex cutting-edge patent cases under the leadership of the esteemed Hideo Ozaki. One of the most important cases undertaken by the firm was advising KDDI, among the largest mobile telecommunication operators in Japan, on a patent infringement case as defendant against a consortium of smaller competitors. The case revolved around a specific technology used in many popular mobile devices, and was settled in favour of KDDI in the IP High Court as the patent was never infringed. Ozaki also handled the evaluation of essential Japanese patents for various pool licensing programmes administered by MPEGLA, such as the MPEG2, MPEG4, AVC and VC-1 standard technologies. Employee inventor cases are a serious problem for Japanese manufacturers under Patent Law Article 35 and Ozaki advises on many such cases throughout the year, including those related to Sanyo Electric.