Mr. Hirai was admitted as an attorney in 1990 and admitted as a Japanese patent attorney in 1995. Mr. Hirai's practice currently involves intellectual property matters, contact and litigation, including patent and trademark prosecution. Mr. Hirai possesses broad experience in negotiating and drafting international license agreements for. various types of intellectual property, with a special focus on cutting-edge technology such as biotechnology and software.. Mr. Hirai has an LL.M degree from the University of Washington, School of Law. He spent 2 years at the University of Washington, including 9 months of research study at CASRIP as a research fellow. He concentrated on biotechnology, with a special focus on the comparative study of biotechnology protection in the United States and Japan and has written several articles on the issue of protection of biotechnology. Mr. Hirai also spent several months at an IP firm in Seattle and was involved in a U.S. IP practice.. After Mr. Hirai came back to Japan, he joined a major international law firm where he was involved international licensing matters and patent and trademark infringement cases. Mr. Hirai was also a legal counselor for the Office of Technology Transfer of the University of Tokyo.. He has held successive posts on a governmental committee concerning industry-academia-government collaboration. He lectures about technology transfer and Intellectual Property Law at universities and TLOs.
