Two patent attorneys in Tokyo have launched a new firm focused exclusively on AI-related intellectual property, citing a shortage of qualified legal professionals in Japan. Yuki Jono and Jun Aoyama established Aoyama Jono Patent & Law Firm to address what they describe as a critical gap in the market for sophisticated AI patent prosecution.
Founders’ Backgrounds
Jono will serve as managing partner and representative attorney-at-law. He spent more than a year as a lawyer at Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu before launching the new venture. Aoyama, who holds the Japanese legal titles of benrishi (patent attorney) and bengoshi (attorney-at-law), previously served as president and representative director of Kaneko Sangyo, a Japanese manufacturer of industrial valves and safety devices. Both founders are members of the Japan Patent Attorneys Association. Both founders remain active members of the Japan Patent Attorneys Association, which helps them stay abreast of regulatory developments.
The pair bring unusual credentials to their new practice. Jono says he is one of only 10 attorneys in Japan who previously worked as a patent examiner. Approximately 80 percent of the firm’s current professionals share that background—a proportion he claims no other firm in the country can match. An 80 percent examiner background is unprecedented among Japanese firms, highlighting the duo’s unique market positioning.
Meeting Unmet Demand
Jono said the decision to establish the firm stemmed directly from the scarcity of legal professionals equipped to handle AI-related patent work. “Japan currently has very few lawyers and patent attorneys equipped to handle sophisticated AI-related patent prosecution,” he told Asia Business Law Journal. “We founded the firm precisely to meet that need.”
He added that the timing reflects the rapid pace at which AI is developing and entering society. “The demand for genuinely specialized advice in the field has never been greater,” Jono said. The firm plans to focus on the full cycle of AI-related IP, from initial prosecution through monetisation and commercial exploitation of resulting rights. Corporate and regulatory matters involving AI and other emerging technologies will form a second pillar of the practice. The corporate and regulatory track will also advise on AI‑related compliance, licensing and cross‑border data‑use issues.
The Japanese AI patent market remains relatively underdeveloped compared to the United States and China, where AI-related filings have surged over the past five years. For Japanese companies seeking to protect machine learning innovations, the pool of attorneys with both technical understanding and prosecutorial experience has historically been thin—a constraint the new firm aims to exploit commercially.
Growth Strategy
Aoyama Jono Patent & Law Firm currently employs six people. Jono said the firm intends to recruit additional former patent examiners as it scales. “Our aim is to consolidate our position as Japan’s only patent and law firm dedicated to AI,” he said. All staff share a strong technical foundation.
Over the next 12 months, Jono wants the firm to establish itself as the first name that comes to mind for AI patent filings in the Japanese market. Longer term, his ambition is to build a practice of the first rank for AI and frontier technologies, drawing on professionals with strong scientific and engineering training.
