[Article / Customs] Customs expert advisers (Katsuomi Isogai, Patent, November 2025)
Updated: 2 hours ago
Article information
Article type: Publication review
Categories: Other Japanese law
Main topics: Border enforcement
First published on this website: October 1, 2026
Display and classification checked: October 1, 2026 (not a revalidation of the legal analysis)
[Article / Customs] Customs expert advisers (Katsuomi Isogai, Patent, November 2025)
Three expert advisers are selected for each case (for example, a mixture of university professors, attorneys and patent attorneys).
Unless there is a clear factual error, Customs makes its decision respecting the expert advisers' majority opinion.
The 2025 list includes four university professors, 20 attorneys and 20 patent attorneys.
<Expert advisers' working process>
1. Receipt of materials and individual review
2. Preliminary meeting of expert advisers (web conference)
The three advisers and Customs officials meet. They do not reach a conclusion here, but discuss whether to request additional materials from the parties.
3. Opinion hearing (oral proceedings)
This is an extremely important occasion at which the parties appear directly and present their cases and rebuttals.
Proceedings run in this order: statements by the applicant and interested party, mutual rebuttals, questions from the advisers and Customs, and final statements.
Through questions, advisers have each party supplement its arguments and clarify the reasoning leading to the final conclusion.
4. Preparation and submission of opinions
Drawing on the discussion at the opinion hearing and supplementary written opinions, the advisers prepare written opinions in expert-report form. If the three disagree, the two-to-one majority opinion is adopted.
Original article: https://lnkd.in/gKbzCxMg
Related articles
Updates and corrections
Substantive corrections and additions are recorded separately from classification, related links and display changes.
October 1, 2026: First publication of the author's original LinkedIn text on this website. Article type, categories, topic tags, sources and consultation navigation added.
2026-10-01 | Display maintenance: added case references stated in the original or language-alternate metadata; not a revalidation of legal analysis.
2026-10-01 | Name notation: replaced verified Japanese-script personal names with Roman-letter forms in this English article and its navigation. Legal analysis and original publication date unchanged.
Comments