2023– date –

We are pleased to announce that we have prepared a new payment method using PayPal as well as multicurrency accounts (JPY, USD, EUR, GBP, SGD) so as to improve your payment experience and reduce your remittance costs. In addition to thes...

We would like to briefly introduce the requirements for amendments under the Japanese patent practice. Firstly, the timing requirements for amendments are shown in the following figure. Amendment-Requirement-IPStart-1ダウンロード The Bas...

In this article, we would like to briefly introduce the basic flow of determining inventive step under Art. 29(2) of the Japanese Patent Law. We hope this information will be helpful in considering a response to a lack of inventive step ...

This article is intended for those who have some knowledge of Japanese patent applications (especially, foreign patent attorneys). Through this article, we hope that you will become familiar with the important practical points of Japanes...

The Intellectual Property (IP) High Court of Japan has issued an important grand panel decision on a patent infringement case (Dwango vs. FC2 Case No. 10046 (Ne) 2021) on May 26, 2023. The case is well known as the Japanese version of th...

The JPO has issued the Status Report 2023. We would like to briefly introduce the latest trends in Japanese IPR filings as seen in this report. The following graphs are extracted from the Status Report 2023. Number of Patent Applications...

We have summarized the basic information on patent, utility model, design, and trademark applications in Japan. Since we often receive questions from our clients regarding patent, utility model, design, and trademark applications in Japa...

We would like to let you know that as announced by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) on March 10, 2023, the Cabinet approved draft amendments to IP laws (primarily, the Unfair Competition Prevention Act (hereinafter, "UC...

On April 1, 2023, the criteria for the restoration of various procedures for patent, utility model, design, and trademark applications will be changed from “due care” to “unintentional” criteria. Even when Applicant fail to complete any ...

Since last week, we have been receiving reports that our website is not accessible, so we have been contacting a server management company and openDNS (In this regard, Cisco Umbrella was blocking access to our website). We also found tha...

We are pleased to announce that Tomoyuki Serizawa, managing partner of the firm, will be a speaker at the following seminar organized by the Hokuriku Division of the Japan Patent Attorneys Association. Title: Unfair Competition Preventio...

IPStart Intellectual Property Law Firm ("IPStart") opened for its business on January 1, 2023. We are pleased to announce that on the same day, Hiroshi HATTORI joined IPStart as a partner of the firm. Hiroshi specializes in patent cases ...