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Revision of Examination Guidelines for Patent and Utility Model in Japan related to Extension of Patent Term

27 March 2019
Examination Standards Office,
Administrative Affairs Division,
Japan Patent Office

Amendment was made to Patent Act Article 67 and the relevant provisions in accordance with the Act on the Arrangement of the Relevant Acts in accordance with the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.

The amended Patent Act Article 67 and the relevant provisions allow a patent term extension system that accepts a compensation of patent term in a case where a certain period of time has passed from the time of filing or examination request of an application to the time of patent registration of the application. However, this amendment does not make any substantive change to the patent term extension system for pharmaceutical inventions that is already prescribed in Patent Act Article 67 and the relevant provisions.

The draft revision of the Examination Guidelines for Patent and Utility Model in Japan (hereinafter, simply referred to as the “Examination Guidelines”) has been prepared based on the discussions at the 13th meeting of the Working Group on the Patent Examination Standards supervised by the Patent System Subcommittee under the Intellectual Property Committee of the Industrial Structure Council. We invited public comments from February 6 to March 8, 2019.

The Examination Guidelines related to the extension of patent term is revised in light of the public comments.

The revised Examination Guidelines is applied to examination on the applications of registration for patent term extension of the patent applications filed on or after March 10, 2020.

Revised Examination Guidelines for Patent and Utility Model in Japan

Overview of Revision of Examination Guidelines for Patent and Utility Model in Japan

Overview of Revision of Examination Guidelines for Patent and Utility Model in Japan related to Extension of Patent Term

  • New chapter on “Extension of Patent Term for Time Period Compensation” is incorporated as Chapter 1 in Part IX “Extension of Patent Term” in the Examination Guidelines in accordance with the amended Patent Act Article 67 and the relevant provisions. Accordingly, the contents of the previous Part IX “Extension of Patent Term” is shifted to Chapter 2 of Part IX “Extension of Patent Term for Pharmaceutical Inventions.”
  • The text of “Extension of Patent Term for Time Period Compensation” includes the statement that the extension term is calculated in accordance with the calendar (in year-month-day format) in the same way as “Extension of Patent Term for Pharmaceutical Inventions.”
  • There is no substantive change in the contents of Chapter 2 “Extension of Patent Term for Pharmaceutical Inventions.” However, a formal amendment is made to match the number in the text in Patent Act and the relevant provisions with that in the Examination Guidelines. Further, the statement that the extension term is calculated in accordance with the calendar (in year-month-day format), as it has conventionally been adopted in examination, is included in the chapter.

[Last updated 8 May 2019]

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Examination Standards Office,

Administrative Affairs Division,

Japan Patent Office

E-mail:PA2A10@jpo.go.jp

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