Patent Case Law and Intellectual Property Practice Blog

Deletion of all claims is permitted in the JPO’s Q&A. I should therefore keep it in mind as a last resort for satisfying the requirement of restriction of claims in the parent-child-grandchild divisional-application problem. https://www.jpo.go.jp/faq/yokuaru/shinpan/document/inde

I came across this sentence: “Propose research and development themes based on the ‘problem’ sections of other companies’ published patent applications.” Was this a novel perspective in 2007? Could we now conduct such research using generative AI? https://www.jpo.go.jp/resources/

① ★ “Suppressing contact with ozone at 0.1 ppm or less” in Claim Limitation 1C need only be achieved by some method. ⇒ Satisfied. ② ★ Novelty / inventive step affirmed on the basis that the purpose differs from the prior art. * If “suppressing contact with ozone at 0.1 ppm or les

* IP High Court judgment of June 23, 2008 The images were not distributed as a daily tear-off calendar. Instead, once a week, images for nearby dates were excerpted and distributed. ⇒ No infringement of the right to integrity of the compilation work. Infringement of an “expectati

* A new invalidity defense raised in the statement of reasons for appeal was considered late. (This would leave virtually no room to make any new argument beginning at the appellate stage….) (Excerpts from the decision) The appellant’s assertion of new grounds for invalidity in t

The Supreme Court’s January 24, 1980 judgment in the “Food Packaging Container” case held that, because judges do not possess knowledge equivalent to that of a person skilled in the art, new allegations and proof of publicly known technology are permissible to establish the commo

Applied-for trademark: “AONO” Does not fall under Article 3(1)(iv). The surname “Aono” (青野) ranks 797th or 849th, with 20,000 people and 6,000 households. ⇒ Nationwide, the number cannot be regarded as particularly large. https://www.jpo.go.jp/system/laws/rule/guideline/trademark

A compilation work = one “that is creative by reason of the selection or arrangement of its materials” (Article 12(1) of the Copyright Act). Author of a compilation work = a person who was creatively and substantively involved in the selection or arrangement of the materials. A p

The number of patent applications in Japan is recovering: 306,855 applications. Appeals against examiners’ decisions of refusal: 20,000. Requests for invalidation trials doubled to 186 (one person filed more than 50). Operation of suspension of examination of divisional applicati

Immediate appeal against a decision dismissing an application to restrict inspection and similar access. A settlement including a nondisclosure clause was reached in patent infringement litigation. ⇒ The defendant applied to restrict inspection of the settlement terms and portion