PIPA: Pacific Industrial Property Association

Many intellectual property organizations have been lost to history. Before the advent of the web, many organizations met and did business for long periods only to dissolve leaving evidence of their work in private libraries. This could have been the fate of PIPA. On or about February 1, 2012, Herbert C. Wamsley, Executive Director of Intellectual Property Owners granted UNH School of Law permission to offer digital copies of PIPA papers and contents donated by longtime PIPA and IPO member Emeritus Professor Karl Jorda. As discussed below, PIPA was incorporated into IPO around 2005.

Professor Jorda donated these materials to the UNH School of Law IP Library on an ongoing basis for many years. According to Jorda these materials could never be published in any way as the Japanese members considered the papers to be confidential, to be kept secret by its members.

In 1970 nearly one hundred persons including thirty individuals who travelled from the United States attended the sessions at which the Pacific Industrial Property Association ("PIPA") was formed. Members were predominantly corporate patent professionals, with a few patent attorney observers.

On Wednesday morning, March 25, 1970, Mr. Shozo Saotome welcomed the attendants who had gathered at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo to proceed with the establishment of a working intellectual industrial property organization.

Mr. John R. Shipman was elected temporary chairman and presided during the unanimous adoption of a constitution for the Pacific Industrial Property Association. Mr. Reynold Bennett was then called upon to submit the names of the proposed officers of PIPA under the constitution and these were unanimously approved by the gathered members.

This group met annually for thirty-five years. Their content was safely guarded. For reasons not apparent from available sources the Intellectual Property Owners acquired PIPA in 2005. IPO held the "1st IPO-JIPA Asian Practice International Congress" on Sept. 13-15 in Seattle, WA, immediately following the IPO Annual Meeting. This conference for corporate employees was held in cooperation with the Japan Intellectual Property Association (JIPA), an organization of corporate employees in Japan. It is the successor to the annual meeting of PIPA, an organization that held meetings of corporate employees in the U.S. and Japan for the past 35 years.

The IPO Asian Practice Committee also met in 2005 to identify, monitor, study and recommend IPO positions regarding intellectual property acquisition, licensing and enforcement issues in Asia with initial emphasis on Japan, China, India, Korea and Taiwan. It was also their role to disseminate and exchange information and views among corporate members of IPO regarding intellectual property problems in Asia.

The Committee took over some of the most important aspects of the work of the U.S. Group of the Pacific Intellectual Property Association (PIPA), an organization dissolving after almost 35 years of existence and which worked closely with this Committee during 2004. The Committee sponsors an International Congress; similar to those formerly hosted by the U.S. Group of PIPA every other year beginning in 2005.

The Japanese Group of PIPA is seeking to become a committee of the Japanese Intellectual Property Association (JIPA) by 2006, which could host the international congress during the alternate years not hosted by IPO.

UNH School of Law has been privileged, in addition to Professor Jorda, to have Professor Jeff Hawley, a past PIPA President, on the Faculty. Interviews with these professors is pending so that the PIPA story can be revealed - in the words of Professor Jorda - "to open the Kimono".

We are pleased to present these papers to researchers, scholars and practitioners.

The PIPA Papers

(PDFs)