Osha, John

John leverages his more than 35 years of IP experience to provide effective strategic counseling to his clients and to mentor younger attorneys and agents in the firm.  His practice covers the full scope of IP with special emphasis on management of complex international IP portfolios.  John founded Osha Bergman Watanabe & Burton LLP in Houston, Texas in 1998, currently leads the firm’s electronics, optics, and physics     group and chairs the firm’s international practice with offices in France, China, Japan and the U.A.E.

International harmonization of IP laws is a major focus of John’s work outside the office.  He was a member of the Bureau (board) of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI, based in Zurich) for 10 years and was the first American to serve as Reporter General (2018-2020) of that organization.  He is also a member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s Harmonization Committee through which he has actively participated in substantive and procedural harmonization discussions in the Industry Trilateral and IP5 Industry groups for many years.  He is a former Director of the AIPLA Board of Directors and currently serves on the AIPPI-US Steering Committee.  The impact of Artificial Intelligence on IP law is another major area of focus.  Having coordinated work on three AI-related resolutions during his time on the AIPPI Bureau, John now chairs AIPLA’s AI task force and chairs the IP5 industry AI task force.  He is the editor and co-author of the Wolters-Kluwer book, “AI and Patents: An international perspective”.