For Patent Attorney Oral-Examination Candidates — Questions on Legislative Purpose (Patents)
更新日：3 日前
Article information
Article type: Reports and activities
Category: Trademarks, Unfair competition law, Patents
Topics: Trade secrets, Indirect infringement
First published on this website: 2026-11-01
Display and classification checked: November 2, 2026
Originally published on Ameblo: 2024-10-03 (Japan time). Full English translation.
For Patent Attorney Oral-Examination Candidates — Questions on Legislative Purpose (Patents)
⇒ Likewise, memorize ten purposes each for designs and trademarks.
• Encouragement of inventions + development of industry
• Legal stability
• Prevention of unforeseen disadvantage to third parties
• Guaranteeing an opportunity to defend
• International harmonization
• Speed (one-time resolution)
• Fairness
• Balance between disclosure and exclusive rights (equity)
• Balance between rights holders and free implementation by the public (equity)
• Alleviating difficulty of proof: presumptions of damages, document-production orders, inspection
• Protecting trade secrets: confidentiality orders, restrictions on inspection and copying, in-camera proceedings
• Excluding double patenting
• Ensuring rational decisions
(Purpose of the patent system)
Grant an exclusive right in exchange for disclosure of the invention.
Encourage inventions and thereby contribute to the development of industry.
(Amendment)
(1) Ensure sufficient disclosure of the invention from the outset and fairness of treatment between applications with insufficient disclosure and applications with sufficient disclosure from the outset.
(2) Prevent unforeseen disadvantages to third parties who acted on the basis of the scope of the invention disclosed at filing.
(Patent Act Article 39)
Exclude double patenting under the principle of one patent per invention.
(Patent Act Article 29-2)
Also take account of avoiding a situation in which appropriate and prompt processing of later applications becomes impossible.
The purpose of requiring reasons in trial decisions (Patent Act Article 157(2)(iv)) is to ensure careful, fair, and appropriate decisions and assist in deciding whether to appeal.
(Patent Act Article 101(ii): indispensable products for indirect infringement)
Extend the patent right to acts highly likely to lead to infringement even for multipurpose products, by wholly enjoining their production, transfer, etc. and ordering their destruction.
(Prior-use right)
The purpose of the system is to achieve fairness between the patentee and a person who had previously practiced the patented invention.
= Adjustment of interests
(Patent Act Article 77(4))
It provides that an exclusive licensee may grant a nonexclusive license to another person with the patentee's consent, on the premise that granting such a license to a third party does not affect the exclusive licensee's exclusive license.
(Patent Act Article 102(2))
Purpose: alleviate the difficulty of proving the amount of damages.
Purpose of the system of confidentiality orders
= Protect parties' trade secrets disclosed in litigation.
(Patent Act Article 167: prohibits a renewed invalidation request between the same parties based on the same facts and evidence)
Achieve a one-time resolution of disputes between the same parties.
(Patent Act Article 157(2): requires reasons in the written trial decision)
Ensure rationality and the like in trial decisions, restrain arbitrariness, and eliminate the risk of findings not based on objective evidence (technical materials) or decisions lacking logical reasoning.
(Main clause of Patent Act Article 134(2): the patentee is in principle given an opportunity to submit a written answer)
Guarantee the opposing party an opportunity to defend.
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November 1, 2026: First published on this website.
November 2, 2026: Added article information, classification, topics, language navigation, related articles where the same case was confirmed, consultation guidance, and SEO. The original text and first-published date were preserved.
