Examination Guidelines for Patent and Utility Model in Japan

June 2009

Examination Standards Office

Followings are the English texts of the Examination Guidelines for Patent and Utility Model in Japan. When any ambiguity of interpretation is found in this provisional translation, the Japanese text shall prevail.

Contents	Note
Part I Description and Claims
Chapter 1  Requirements for Description and Claims <PDF 168KB>	Examples are to be prepared
Chapter 2  Requirements of Unity of Invention<PDF 80KB>	Examples are to be prepared
(Reference) Requirements for Unity of Application<1,051KB> * Applied to the application on or before December 31, 2003
Chapter 3  Requirements for Disclosure of Information on Prior Art Document<146KB>
Part II  Requirements for Patentability
Chapter 1  Industrially Applicable Inventions<317KB>
Chapter 2  Novelty and Inventive Step<309KB>
Chapter 3  Patent Law Section 29bis<172KB>
Chapter 4  Patent Law Section 39<203KB>
Chapter 5  Treatment of Information disclosed on the Internet as Prior Art<113KB>
Part III  Amendment of Description, Claims and Drawings
Section I, II, III   Amendment of Description, Claims and Drawings<399KB>
Section IV  Examples Concerning Amendments of Specifications or Drawings<274KB>	Examples Concerning Judgment of New Matter are to be prepared
Part IV  Priority
Chapter 1  Application Claiming Priority under Paris Convention<104KB>
Chapter 2  Application Claiming Internal Priority<85KB>
Part V  Special Application
Chapter 1  Division of Application<229KB>
Chapter 2 Conversion of Application<44KB>
Chapter 3  Patent Application Based on Utility Model Registration<44KB>
Part VI  Patent Term Extension<105KB>
Part VII  Examination Guidelines For Inventions in Specific Fields
Chapter 1  Computer Software-Related Invention<446KB>
Chapter 2  Biological Inventions<280KB>	Examples of Inventions Relating to Protein Conformation are to be prepared
Chapter 3  Medicinal Inventions<137KB>
Part VIII  Foreign Language Application<275KB>
Part IX  Procedure of Examination<225KB>
Part X  Utility Model
Chapter 1  Establishment of the Report of Utility Model Technical Opinion<90KB>
Chapter 2  Basic Requirements for Utility Model Registration<61KB>
<appendix> Measurement Act<75KB> [Law No. 51, 1992 (extract)]

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[Last updated 23 Oct 2009]