Trial and Appeal Practitioner Study Group Report 2022（Summary）is released.

The Trial and Appeal Department of the JPO holds the “Trial and Appeal Practitioner study Group” annually, in which trial and appeal practitioners from the different positions such as IP practitioners from industries, patent attorneys, attorneys, judges (as an observer), administrative judges gather to conduct studies on trial and appeal decisions and court decisions, and the results of the studies are widely disseminated by publishing the English report. In the fiscal year of 2022, we had deeper and more active discussions by increasing the number of meetings by fields and taking advantage of hybrid meetings.

At this fiscal year’s Study Group of 2022, the members discussed ①general issues (support requirements for numerical limitation inventions; clarity requirements; intrinsic properties in determining novelty; determination of inventive step when different features are matters related to a business method, or a game rule and arrangement; and determination of similarity of combined trademarks) and ② individual case (selected from court precedents considered important for trial and appeal practices and trial/appeal decisions subject to the court precedents) in each of five fields（4 patent fields: Machinery, General Chemistry, Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology, and Electricity, and Trademark）.

We would be grateful if you read the results of discussions by users of the Japanese trial and appeal system and find it helpful to understand the trial and appeal practices in Japan.

• Trial and Appeal Practitioner Study Group Report 2022 (Summary) （PDF:1,141KB）
  

The English translation of the summary of the reports is available at Trial and Appeal Practitioner Study Group Report | Japan Patent Office (jpo.go.jp).

[Last updated 24 March 2023]