Invitation for Public Comments on Draft Revision of Examination Guidelines

On February 10, 2016, the Japan Patent Office published the draft revision of the Examination Guidelines, and invited public comments up to March 10, 2016.
Revised are:
(1) “Use Invention of Foods” (Part III, Chapter 2, Section 2),
(2) “Revision to be adapted for the Patent Law Treaty” (Parts V, VI, VII and VIII), and
(3) “Patent Term Extension” (Part IX).

You may obtain further information in English from the following website.

The above revisions were discussed and agreed at the 7th to 9th meetings of the Working Group on the Patent Examination Standards supervised by the Patent System Subcommittee under the Intellectual Property Committee of the Industrial Structure Council.

By the revision (1), use invention of foods may be acknowledged as novel and become patentable. The revision (2) clarifies details of newly acceptable procedures under the Patent Law Treaty. The revision (3) is to make the Examination Guidelines be in conformity with the Japan Supreme Court judgment (the JPO vs. Genentech, Inc., No. 2014(gyo hi)356, November 17, 2015), which rejected the current Examination Guidelines. By the revision (3), more patent term extensions are available in Japan.

The Japan Patent Office plans that the revised Examination Guidelines go into effect in mid-April. You may send your comments to the Japan patent Office via e-mail. If you would like to need our supports, please contact us.

(Toshio NAKAMURA, PhD, Japanese patent attorney)


Draft Revision of the Examination Guideline

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