On July 24 the Japan Patent Attorneys Association (JPAA) announced that it is planning to establish an organization which will evaluate intellectual properties. It will make, by the end of this year, a manual which shows how to separately determine the value of each intellectual property right or to grade it. Given the cooperation of interested parties such as CPAs or financial institutions, JPAA aims to establish this organization in or after fiscal year 2004.

The result of a company survey made by JPAA last autumn showed that 70% of the companies polled called on JPAA to establish such an organization that would evaluate intellectual properties. Cases have been becoming more frequent in which courts ask the JPAA to evaluate intellectual properties.

As of yet, Japan has no organization or system that functions to objectively evaluate such properties. Thus, a small number of patent attorneys individually handle these types of cases.

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