The Grand Panel of the IP High Court considered the industrial applicability of a patent for a composition for breast augmentation, as well as the issue of exemption from patent infringement.
This article presents a focused overview of selected data from the "JPO Status Report 2025", highlighting the latest trends and year-on-year comparisons, particularly as regards numbers of intellectual property applications.
The Supreme Court presented its view that Japanese patent rights may extend to cross-border acts involving network-related inventions and set forth the criteria for such cases.
We would like to highlight key differences between Japanese patent practice and that of the United States, Canada, and Australia concerning the exceptions to loss of novelty (also referred to as the “grace period”).
The Court determined that the Japan Patent Office (JPO)'s dismissal of an application that listed "DABUS, The invention was autonomously generated by an artificial intelligence" as the name of the inventor, was legitimate.
On July 13, 2021, a request for arbitration in the public interest based on Article 93 of the Patent Law was filed for the first time in Japan; however, the request was withdrawn on May 30, 2024, as a result of settlement.
The Japan Patent Office (JPO) has introduced a measure known as "service by publication" for documents that cannot be delivered to the intended recipient, by instead publishing the relevant information in the Official Gazette and the Patent Gazette, posting the information at the JPO or making the information accessible by other such means.
The Japan Patent Office (JPO), together with the USPTO, the EPO, the CNIPA and the KIPO, has published a comparison table that summarizes the laws, examination guidelines and exemplary cases concerning AI-related inventions, which was approved by the five offices (IP5 Offices) in June 2023.
