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New patent law in Japan |
A number of changes to Japanese patent law entered into force on
1 July 1995 and 1 January 1996.
The most important of these are as follows:
1. Maximum lifetime of a patent
The new patent law fixes the term of a patent as 20 years from the application date.
2. Patent applications in
foreign languages
The change allows applicants to make a patent application in a foreign language provided they file a Japanese translation of the application within two months from the application date. At present, English is the only language acceptable. The Japanese translation is regarded as the authentic text.
3. Post-grant opposition
Under the old law, it was possible to file oppositions prior to grant following publication of the examined patent application. Under the new law, oppositions may be filed within six months of the date of publication of the granted patent.
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1. A documents
A documents will continue to be published on CD-ROM (JPO
CD-ROM A&U) 18 months after the filing/priority date, and will retain the same style of publication number as under the old law, ie a two-digit emperor's year number followed by a six-digit serial number.
In the case of patent applications filed in English, both the Japanese and English versions of the claims, specification, drawings and abstract will be published on CD-ROM.
Japanese translations of unexamined PCT applications designating Japan have also been available on CD-ROM as A documents with search reports since January 1996. The publication number of these new documents consists of a two-digit emperor's year number and a six-digit serial number beginning with 500,001.
2. B documents
B documents will continue to be published on CD-ROM (JPO CD-ROM B&Y) after examination. However, following the changes to the law, they now contain granted patents, whereas the old B documents contained examined applications published before grant. Publication of the old type of B documents was terminated at the end of March 1996, and publication of the new type is scheduled to begin in June/July 1996.
B documents published from June onwards will have publication numbers starting with 2,500,001.
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