Inventions which were granted Patents at the JPO will be registered in Cambodia without Examination by the Kampuchean Patent Authority

It has been decided that inventions which were granted patents at the JPO will be granted a patents in Cambodia without any modification and further examination by the Kampuchean Patent Authority.

This treatment is the results of agreement between the Director of Japan Patent Office and Ministry of Industry and Handicraft in Cambodia, and the agreement will be in force from July 1st, 2016.

Although it has been necessary for patent applicants to have their patent applications examined by the Examiner at the Kampuchean Patent Authority, the agreement between the two Patent Offices enable the registration without any examination at the Kampuchean Patent Authority as long as the inventions were granted patents after examination at the Japan Patent Office.

Since many foreign enterprises, especially those in the manufacturing industry, expand their business to Cambodia, the number of patent applications filed by the foreign enterprises is increasing.

However, the current system for patent examination in Cambodia is not sufficient to examine such an increasing number of patent applications. Among 300 patent applications thus far filed with the Kampuchean Patent Authority, almost no patent application has been examined yet.

The JPO is now planning to expand this kind of agreement with other emerging countries in ASEAN.

Reported by Koji WATANABE, Patent Attorney