IP NEWS:SOEI Patent & Law Firm

On January 6th, Makoto Nakajima, the Commissioner of the JPO announced his message. He stated in the message (an English translation is posted on the JPO website (http://www.jpo.go.jp/cgi/linke.cgi?url=/shoukai_e/soshiki_e/annual_message_e.htm)) that the JPO intends “to provide continuous and reliant public patent administration and increase international competitiveness in the services that the JPO provides through the means described below.”

First, he stated that “the JPO will attain a total of 500 fixed-term examiners according to the JPO five-year plan to affect a radical reform to strengthen the patent examination system and to increase the utilization of the outsourcing of prior art searches by private certification/registration organizations.” He stated that the JPO aims “to attain an eleven month ‘waiting period for patent examination,’ the shortest in the world, by 2013 and finally eliminate the waiting period altogether.”

Secondly, he stated that the JPO “will further pursue the international harmonization of patent systems through participation in the Japan-US trial runs of the Patent Prosecution Highway scheme in accordance with the deliberations of last year’s Trilateral Conference, which will lead to accelerated patent examination and greater convenience on an international scale, and” the JPO “will advance the establishment of the Patent Prosecution Highway between Japan and Korea in accordance with the agreement reached in the Commissioners’ Meeting between the KIPO and the JPO.”

Thirdly, he stated that “as for small and medium enterprises and regional support,” the JPO “will assist such organizations through regional revitalization programs, focusing our efforts on IP exploitation and the establishment of strategic IP exploitation systems in those enterprises that have lagged behind larger corporations in the exploitation of IP.”

“Finally,” he stated that the JPO “will improve the environment for the creation, protection and exploitation of IP, the ‘IP Creation Cycle,’ in order to make Japan into an ‘IP-based Nation.’”

If the revisions are approved, it is expected that Japan become an “IP-based Nation.”