Patents

PCT National Phase Entry Requirements in Japan

  1. Deadline is 30 Months from the priority date.
    The deadline can be recovered if there is a“legitimate reason” of the overdue
  2. Japanese Translation can be filed within 2 months from the date of filing a request for national phase entry into Japan.
  3. Examination Request must be filed within 3 years from the international filing date. Fee reduction program for government fee might be applied for small entity. (Fee reduction program)
  4. Power of Attorney does not required
  5. Sequence Listing is required in text format for biotech invention

Conventional application through Paris Route

  1. Applicant can file a patent application in Japan in ANY languages
    ( Japanese translation must be filed within 16 months from the priority date )
  2. Priority Documents (Certified) must be filed within 16 months from the priority date
  3. Digital Access Service (DAS) can be a replacement of priority documents
    (We ask the copy of original documents including front page for our confirmation.)
  4. Power of Attorney does not required
  5. Sequence Listing is required in text format for biotech invention

The Flow of the Acquisition of Patent Rights

Application

To identify the content of ideas about the acquisition of Patent Rights, you will prepare the following documents; inventors, the general information of the invention, images, prototypes, and experimental data.
Publication of the Application

In general, the publication of the application will be available 1.5 year after the application. Before the publication, the content of the application is strictly kept secret.

Requests for examination

You have to promote the requests for examination, paying the fee of it until the three years before the application. You are regarded as withdrawing the application if you do not promote it. Yet, the fee will be reduced or waived.

Examination
Notice of reasons for refusal
Submission / Amendment
Decision of rejection
Trial against examiner's decision of refusal

After the examination, you are, in most cases, noticed the reasons for refusal. In such cases, you can submit opinion papers or amendments during the term (usually 60 days).
Also, you can have a chance to meet the examiners and tell them directly about the technological instruction or the opinions against the reasons of refusal. It is a good choice to acquire the right.
Decision of patent

Once all of the reasons for refusal are disappeared, the application will be able to go to the next stage-Decision of patent or patent trail- , and the fee will be reduced or waived.
Payment of the patent fee

The patent right is available after paying the fee of registration of the patent during the mentioned schedule.
Registration

The initial date on reckoning is the date of registration. Afterwards, the public patent notice will be published in order to make the final content of the patent officially opened. (Japanese Patent Law Article 1)

Registration

After receiving a patent decision, a patent right is issued by paying a registration fee. Few weeks later, official gazette will be published. We recommend considering a divisional application. For divisional application, Power of Attorney is required. Please note that third party may file a request for opposition within 6 months from the date of publication of the official gazette.

For more information about Japanese patent system, please visit the Links below:
FAQ of the Japanese patent system (JPO Link)