Japan’s influential Judge Nakashima defines Munich-inspired FRAND guidelines, but there is potential for further interjurisdictional friction

Context: At this time, the most famous Japanese patent judge is Judge Motoyuki Nakashima of the Tokyo District Court, a former Max Planck visiting scholar.

• Last summer, he entered a Pantech v. Google standard-essential patent (SEP) ruling (June 30, 2025 ip fray article) that led to a settlement.
• He’s presiding over the largest (though greatly unimpressive with respect to the technical “depth” of the claimed inventions) games industry patent dispute, Nintendo v. Pocketpair (May 11, 2025 ip fray article). The Nintendo patents indirectly related to the dispute raise uch obvious patentability issues, and one of them has even led United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John A. Squires to initiate a Director review (November 7, 2025 ip fray article).
• Judge Nakashima made an AI-related decision that was taken note of by patent professionals around the globe (Nagashima article).