Eiichi Yamamoto is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2010-11.  He joined the Japan Patent Office (JPO) in 1999 and has worked as a patent examiner, handling patent applications in the field of organic chemistry.  In 2007, he was in charge of policy planning of intellectual property, especially with respect to the utilization of intellectual property, at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).  He obtained his BS and MS in Chemical Science and Engineering from Kobe University.