Announcement on Revision of the Trademark Examination Manual

August 2014

The JPO announces that the following revisions have been made on the Trademark Examination Manual.

Points of Revision

1. Outline

Along with the partial revision of the examination guidelines for trademarks concerning the expansion of the scope of eligible entities to register regional collective trademarks accompanied by the partial revision of Patent Act in 2014, the relevant provisions of the Trademark Examination Manual has been revised.

2. Revised Provisions

• (1) From “those who is not entitled to obtain a trademark registration,” the descriptions of “a specified nonprofit corporation (so-called NPO corporation) and “the chamber of commerce and industry” have been deleted. In addition, it was reviewed how entities that were not entitled to register regional collective trademarks should be described, which has resulted in describing by group, such as “association who does not have juridical personality” or “association whose ground law does not stipulate that any person who is eligible can be a member.”
• (2) Along with the transferring of provisions stipulated in the Trademark Examination Manual to the Examination Guidelines for Trademarks, those that were transferred have been deleted from the Trademark Examination Manual (The provision 47.101.02 has been completely deleted). Furthermore, provisions related to the formality check and other provisions not being directly related to the substantial examination have been deleted.
• (3) Newly Added Descriptions
  • 1) A List of “Examples of Association that are Entitled to Register Regional Collective Trademarks”
  • 2) An Example of Documents to be Submitted by a “Foreign Juridical Person” (template)

The List of Revisions
The followings are the details.

	The List of Revisions
47.101.01	Requirements for Entities concerning an Application for Registering Regional Collective Trademarks
47.101.02 (deleted)	Trademarks to be used by Members of a Collective (deleted)

For the revised Trademark Examination Manual, please click here.

[Last updated 30 January 2014]

Contact

Trademark Examination Standards Office Tel:+81-3-3581-1101 Ext. 2807 Fax: +81-3-3580-5907