Recent IP activities of Japanese companies
JPO Annual Report

Japan Patent Office (JPO) published an annual report on July 12 2019. According to the report, 313,567 patent applications were filed in Japan in 2018. And, 253,000 patent applications among them were filed by domestic applicants. It slightly decreased than last year. As you may know, Japanese companies have been reducing investment in Japanese patents. However, my more serious concern is that they have been not increasing investment in patenting in foreign countries either, while increasing foreign sales. The chart shows the transition of foreign patent filing number and the foreign sales of Japanese companies. In fact, Japanese companies have not increased investment in intellectual properties, despite the increasing importance of […]

JPO’s SEP advisory opinion service updated
Negotiation on SEP

JPO’s SEP advisory opinion service has been updated for cases received on or after July 1 2019. This service started from April 2018, to provide a JPO’s non-binding opinion on whether a particular patent is a standard essential patent (SEP). We covered this service in the previous article here. The changes in the user’s guide include the following. User can demand an opinion that a particular patent is NOT a standard essential patent. User can use this service not only for licensing negotiations, but also for the negotiations in patent trade, business transfer involving patent transfer, and creation of security interest in patents. It explicitly describes that, even when JPO provides a […]