YUASA and HARA is a leading Japanese law firm. Our expertise covers various business legal issues, seamless IP protection and accounting. We have established a strong international reputation on the basis of our comprehensive services. We provide legal services, IP protection (prosecution and enforcement) and other transactional services. In addition, our firm offers efficient accounting and auditing services. Utilising a strong and closely cooperative partnership system, we have successfully united the professions of attorney at law, patent attorney and certified public accountant within one firm.
Our firm was established by Toyotaro Yuasa in Osaka in 1902. After retiring from the judiciary in the 1920s, Judge Yuasa began and developed a successful private practice with his son, Kyozo Yuasa, in international business transactions and intellectual property, which continued to thrive after the office moved from Osaka to Tokyo in 1947.
Although our firm underwent several name and office location changes up to the mid-1960s, it was finally named YUASA and HARA after Masuji Hara joined in 1967. Judge Hara contributed to the development of an industrial property division at the Tokyo District and High Courts. His extensive experience and expertise in this area considerably enhanced our firm’s practice and reputation. During this era, the accounting and auditing division was added as a third area in the firm, in order to assist clients with auditing and taxation matters.
Organisation and expertise
YUASA and HARA is organised into four divisions: law, patents, trademarks and designs, and accounting and auditing. Building on its strong tradition of multi-professional disciplines, technical expertise and international vision, our firm has been at the forefront of cutting-edge areas such as anti-monopoly and competition; business method patents; computer software protection; corporate transactions and international investments for venture businesses; cross-border transactions; cyberspace transactions; domain name disputes; M&A; international litigation and alternative dispute resolution; international brand protection of trademarks and designs; IT and information and communications technology matters; and patent protection in biotechnology, mechatronics, computer sciences and other advanced technologies.
The trademark and design division comprises trademark attorneys Kazuhiro Nakata and Hiromichi Aoki.
In the law division, Osamu Suzuki and Kozo Yabe have been assisting various international brands and industries with trademark litigation and licensing transactions.
International network and association
Since the early days of YUASA and HARA, the provision of an international service for both Japanese and foreign clients has been at the core of all our legal and IP expertise. To sustain and enhance this capacity, we maintain various international networks for our clients. The firm is a member of TerraLex and Unilaw – both international alliances for qualified business law firms. TerraLex covers more than 100 countries, with 16,000 lawyers worldwide providing an extensive range of legal expertise. Unilaw is an extensive network comprising mostly European lawyers.
In addition to these private alliances, our firm’s members are active in international associations for law and IP professionals such as the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property, the International Literary and Artistic Association, the Asian Patent Attorneys Association, the International Federation of IP Attorneys, INTA, the Inter-Pacific Bar Association and the Licensing Executives Society. These activities enable our firm to provide expeditious, seamless and reliable legal and IP assistance for our clients, wherever they come from and go to, through our commitment to international networks and associations.