HOUSTON (April 12, 2016) — Intellectual property law firm Patterson & Sheridan announces the opening of the firm’s first international office in the spectacular Landmark Tower in Yokohama. The Landmark Tower is famed as the second highest building in Japan. The new Patterson & Sheridan 44 ^th-floor office in the Tower offers stunning views of Yokohama Bay.

The opening of the Yokohama office coincides with Patterson & Sheridan’s 20 ^th anniversary in 2016. The firm already has five domestic offices across the U. S. in Dallas; Houston; Palo Alto; Greensboro, North Carolina; and Shrewsbury, New Jersey.

Fred Kim, managing partner of Patterson & Sheridan’s Palo Alto office will also serve as managing partner of the Yokohama office. Tomonori Hirabayashi, technical advisor and general manager of the Japanese office, and Ryota Watanabe, who is licensed to practice as a patent attorney both in Japan and in the United States, will staff the Yokohama office fulltime for the present. Fred Kim will split his time between Palo Alto and Yokohama. Patterson & Sheridan partners Donald Verplancken and Ronald Embry will also be spending a significant portion of their time at the Yokohama office.

“Our purpose in establishing a permanent office in Japan,” comments firm founding partner B. Todd Patterson, “is, first of all, to be close to our Japanese clients, in order to facilitate communications and the smooth flow of service. We will have a U.S. patent attorney in the office at all times, to field questions about U.S. patent practices in real time. Of course, the Yokohama office will also provide the firm with a marketing base in Japan, enhancing our international capabilities and our brand recognition. In addition, it will enable our firm to provide better, faster service to clients in Taiwan, China and South Korea.”

Patterson adds that the Yokohama office will also serve a more general educational purpose, enabling the firm to offer seminars and lectures, both in the office and at client sites.

Fred Kim explains that, although a number of U.S. law firms have offices in Japan, only a handful of these offices are focused specifically on supporting U.S. patent prosecution. Despite the costs in establishing the office, Patterson & Sheridan attorneys are making a serious and permanent commitment to Japan because they recognize the value in interacting with the clients directly.

The address of the new office is 44 ^th floor, Suite 4410; 2-2-1 Minatomirai, Nishi-ku; Yokohama, Japan 220-0012. The telephone is +81.45.670.2520.

Patterson + Sheridan LLP is an intellectual property firm with 67 attorneys located in offices in Houston; Dallas; Palo Alto; Greensboro, North Carolina; Shrewsbury, New Jersey and now, also, Yokohama, Japan. The firm is celebrating its 20 ^th anniversary in 2016.

Patterson + Sheridan offers a broad range of intellectual property services, including preparing and prosecuting patents, representing clients in litigation, dispute resolution, and post-grant proceedings and actions, and providing counseling and strategic insight to clients in a wide variety of industries. The firm has assisted companies in energy, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, clean technologies, communications technologies, complex software, consumer products, electronics and semiconductor technologies, financial technology and business methods, industrial products, Internet-related technologies, medical devices and procedures, nanotechnology and optics.