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Newsletter June and July 2008 Japan
May 6, 2008 | Nikkei Net
On 5 May the JPO has confirmed their new objective “Super Accelerated Examination System”, which is to complete initial examinations of patents within 2 weeks or latest within a month. Biotechnology and Nanotechnology would be the test objects of this trial run, which is scheduled to be implemented in October. Compared to the present system, the examination period would be shortened by 1 to 2-and-a-half months. Competition amongst enterprises and research organizations to get their innovations patented has been intensifying and expediting the patent examination could help to increase the international competitiveness of these new technologies.
May 29, 2008 | FFN News
After contesting in court as to whether Japan Coca Cola’s glass bottles could be registered as 3D trademarks, the IP high court has ruled that since about 60% to 80% of consumers can distinguish Coca Cola from other drinks by the appearance of the bottles, it shows that the shape of the bottle itself has been recognized as a brand symbol of Coca Cola and thus Japan Coca Cola can be registered as a 3D trademark.
3D trademark was first introduced in Japan in 1996, and owners can claim for 3D trademark rights if consumers can recognize their products by the shape of the product. Examples of 3D trademarks recognized in Japan are as follows,
- Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Kernel Sanders statue
- Fujiya’s “Peko chan” doll
- Waseda University’s “Okuma Shigenobu” statue.
Coca cola has applied for the trademark registration of their 190ml bottle 5years ago. However, their application was rejected and thus they made an appeal against the decision in 2007. Another 3D trademark that was approved in 2007 was that of Mag Lite.
June 4, 2008: | The Daily Yomiuri | Press release
It has been reported by the Justice Ministry that the largest group of registered foreigners in Japan is the Chinese at 606, 889. Until last year, Ethnic Koreans used to be the largest group of foreigners living in Japan. However, the number of Chinese has grown rapidly due to the increase of Chinese students and trainees sent to Japan by Chinese companies. Tokyo has the greatest number of registered foreigners at 380, 000 followed by Aichi Prefecture with 220, 000 and Osaka Prefecture, 210, 000.
June 13, 2008 | Japan Patent Office, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)
The Japan Patent Office (JPO) and the Danish Patent and Trademark Office (DKPTO) have agreed to start implementing the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) Pilot Program from July 1, 2008 at the DKPTO/JPO Heads Meeting, which was held in Tokyo on June 13, 2008. The PPH aims to help expedite the patent application process worldwide, reduce the workload of patent examiners and improve the quality of patent examination at both offices.
June 30, 2008 | Content Overseas Distribution Association
The Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA) continues to enforce control against piracy of Japanese contents, having confiscated about 870,000 copies of pirated DVDs in 2007. The cumulative number of DVDs confiscated since Jan 2005 until March 2008 stands at 4.55 million. In particular, in February 2008, there was the successful implementation of an anti-piracy campaign held in Hong Kong, whereby specially designated countries collectively used the same CJ mark for their products. This was the world’s first success case for an anti-piracy campaign. In line with these enforcement activities, training seminars were held in 7cities, with China as the main focus.
Additional information about the current status of this anti-piracy program (in Japanese)
June 29, 2008 | Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters
The Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters confirmed the contents of the “Intellectual Property Strategic Program 2008” on June 18, 2008. The subtitle “Strengthening Global Intellectual Property (IP) Strategy” refers to the desire for an IP system that promotes technological revolutions in order to create a “Captivating Japan”. Furthermore, the said program incorporates many recommendations for reviewing the current legal system and other measures so as to prevent and remove any obstacles that might hinder this.
Some of the special features of this program mentioned are, consideration of introducing the concept of “fair use” to copyrights law; revision of IP laws to enable internet search companies to set up their servers in the country; and revision of copyright laws.
Further, other features such as the construction of a comprehensive support system to expedite research in and commercialization of iPS cells, discussion on the role of IP protection in the field of advanced medicine, government-level support towards overseas websites that seek to delete unlawful web contents, and improvement measures in the protection on use of names of places in Japan and famous trademarks, were also incorporated in this year’s program.
China
May 13, 2008 | Ryukushimpo
The widespread existence of counterfeit goods and piracy in China is a serious Intellectual Property (IP) rights infringement issue. There have been so many cases of IP infringement that even the World Trade Organization (WTO) has also reported in their “Trade Assessment Report” that China needs to improve IP protection and increase the penalty against its infringement. China is the growth engine of the world’s economy. With China occupying a great share of the world’s economy, the severeness of infringement in IP rights in China can bring great chaos to the entire international society.
In order to correct this disorder, establish and protect China’s future IP rights, it is hoped that China would start taking aggressive measures to improve its constitutional power.
According to Japan’s “Unfair Trade Report”, Japanese enterprises in China have also been greatly affected by IP infringements. Japan (27 trillion, 8800 billion JPY) has surpassed the United States (25 trillion JPY) to be the country that has the largest volume of trade with China. 65% of Japanese enterprises overseas that suffered from IP infringement were mostly found in China, including Hong Kong. Besides, out of 139 companies in China that were affected by IP infringement, 78 companies were Japanese enterprises. IP infringement would greatly affect Japan and China’s future trading activities and the consequent trade friction is also inevitable.
In response to the rapid growth in economy, China has also decided to commit itself to protect Intellectual Property Rights in the International Agreement. However, there is doubt with regards to this commitment as China has been slow in equipping itself with the civil, criminal and administrative law facilities necessary to protect IP rights. For example, it has been said that the fine for infringement of trademarks is too low to prevent misuse of the trademarks. Moreover, there were cases where confiscated pirated or counterfeit goods were in turn sold by the governing agents. Inside sources have also revealed officers-in-charge who admitted that they had shown leniency to offenders as the production of these pirated goods “contribute to the local economy”.
In a country where the profiteering spirit still reigns supreme, it would be very difficult to inculcate the law-abiding spirit in people. It is fervently hoped that China will be enlightened soon enough to make concrete steps towards improving its law and enforcement order.
May 13, 2008 | State Intellectual Property Office of P.R.C. (SIPO)
According to Xinhua News Agency, patent applications for “Technology Olympics” have exceeded 320 cases and those approved have reached 180 cases.
According to the report, “Technology Olympics” was created by the Beijing Olympics Committee at the opening ceremony of the “Beijing Technology Olympics Exhibition” on 21 May 2008, after it was confirmed in 2001 that the coming Olympics would be hosted by Beijing. They implemented the “Olympics Technology Project”, which aims to promote new technologies, such as new energy automobiles, 3G telecommunication and solar energy generating systems.
In accordance with this project, 500 electric buses would be used during the Olympics period and the National Sports Hall would start to use the new solar energy generating system.
This exhibition, with the theme “May Beijing be better, May the Olympics be more spectacular”, occupies a floor area of 8200 sqm, exhibiting about close to 160 items, was made to become the “City of Olympics Technology”.
June 30, 2008 | State Intellectual Property Office of P.R.C. (SIPO)
The State Intellectual Property Office of P.R.C (SIPO) and the National Rails Department signed an agreement on 30 June in collaboration of the first “Intellectual Property (IP) Rights Strategy”.
According to the vice chairman of SIPO, this agreement would become a national model strategy. He also pointed out that through this preparation of the “IP Rights Strategy” for the rail industry, he recognized that there was a need to establish an “IP Rights” guide, based on which technological advancements in the rail industry and the standard and number of IP rights shall be promoted.
This collaboration was created based on the National Intellectual Property Strategy Map and the national strategy to promote IP work. It is considered a milestone in China’s Intellectual Property Rights development.
Summary of the National Intellectual Property Strategy Map:
Intellectual Property Strategic Program 2008 (in Japanese)
- Construction of a complete IP rights, laws and management system.
To make the laws and regulations related to IP more complete and serve as a guide to economic, culture and society policies- Promotion of creativity and use of IP.
To prepare for policies other than public finance, finance, investments and government supply, such as manufacturing, energy and environment conservation; promote creativity and use of IP rights by enterprises in the market.- Strengthening of IP rights protection.
Besides controlling through legal means, to minimize the cost of rights maintenance, enforce strict penalties for misuse of IP rights and control misuse acts.- Prevention of misuse of IP rights.
To enact IP laws, rationalize the boundaries of protection of IP rights, set the market disciplines for fair competition and maintain fair right benefits.- Cultivation of IP culture.
To create a culture that respects knowledge, encourage creativity and abide IP laws.Topics such as Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, Trade secrets, New plants species, Special designated IP rights and National Defence IP rights have been also raised as focus points. Further, 9 strategies were listed as follow:
- Improvement of creativity for IP rights,
- Promotion of creativity and use of IP rights,
- Strengthening of law facilities,
- Improvement of the standard of IP laws,
- Strengthening of administration management,
- Development of intermediaries of IP,
- Human resource development,
- Development of IP culture,
- Expansion of exchange and collaboration activities with other countries
Korea
May 29, 2008 | Korean Intellectual Property Office
It has been confirmed that Korean patents applications in America can be done much faster than normal patents using the new US-Korea Patent Prosecution Highway.
The Concept of the Patent Prosecution Highway
When an applicant applies for a patent in Countries A and B at the same time, should the patent be granted in Country A, the Patent Office in Country B can use the results of assessment in country A to expedite the assessment process. After the trial of the US-Korea Patent Highway system was carried out from 28 Jan 2008, Microsoft was granted their first patent in Korea through the use of the new system. Microsoft was granted their patent just 2months after their application, while other normal domestic patent applications take about 10 months to be processed. This system has at least saved applicants 8 months’ waiting time. LG Korea also managed to receive their patent in the US 3 months after the application through the new Highway system. This is 22 months faster than the speed of processing normal domestic applications in the US, which takes about, on average, 25 months for an application to be approved.
Mr. Bart Eppenauer, Microsoft’s Chief Patent Officer said that this was the first time that they had managed to register their patent using the new system and they were very happy about it. He also added that this was a pace-setting effort by the Korea Intellectual Property office and he thought that this would definitely help encourage cooperation between patent offices around the world. The representative from LG has also expressed that the use of this new system has helped saved about 20 months of waiting time and they are very satisfied with its results. This new Patent Prosecution Highway would be on trial from 28 Jan 2008 through 28 Jan 2009.
June 2, 2008 | Daily Pharm
The report of a newly developed medicine, made from the famous Sanghwang and Yeongji mushrooms, which have anti-cancer effects is currently in the limelight. The Korean Intellectual Patent Office (KIPO) reported on 2 Jun 2008 that there had been a sudden increase in the number of patent applications for medicine products that contained beta glucan extracts from the Sanghwang and Yeongji mushrooms.
According to KIPO, in the recent 10 years, there have been 152 cases of patent applications for beta glucan products and since year 2000, when it was proven scientifically that beta glucan helped to fight against cancer, the number of patent applications for beta glucan products has increased by 20 cases internationally and domestically per annum. The types of patents applied for include, medical products 30%, health products 24%, cosmetics 9% and others 35%. Based on the different uses of the medicine products, we can see that the largest number of patent applications come from anti-cancer drugs 23%; obesity and coronary arteriosclerosis each 13%; diabetes, inflammation and allergy 9% each; the bird flu and other viruses and osteoporosis each 7%; and antibiotics, psoriasis , metabolic syndrome, epilepsy and kidney diseases each 2%. Besides the anti-cancer effects and immunization functions of beta glucan, its other possible uses are still being researched and if discovered, more diseases could be cured in the future.
June 19, 2008 | My Daily
Recently, forgery techniques have undergone rapid developments and the forging of documents has become very easy. Consequently, unauthorized use of intellectual property rights is on the rise. To prevent further misuse of intellectual property rights, it was announced on 18 June that, from 20 June 2008, when a third party tries to apply for a transfer of rights in either patents, trademarks or designs, there will be a notification service via e-mail to inform the owner of such an incident. The owner of the rights could apply for this service at the homepage of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) and receive such notification messages via e-mail free-of-charge.
With this service, owners would not need to check the status of their rights over and over again as they would be informed before any changes to their rights can be made. They would be notified of all changes such as application for patents, trademarks, designs, assessment results of examiners, appointment or dismissal or agents and the right-to-use of intellectual property etc.
June 30, 2008 | Yonhap News
The Korean Intellectual Patent Office (KIPO) announced on 30 June 2008 that from 1 July 2008, they shall expand their information database and provide Chinese patent information as well via “www.kipris.or.kr.” Previously, the patent information provided was limited to America, Japan and Europe. Further, it has been said that although KIPO will provide a translation software for foreign users to change English and Japanese into Hangul, when searching for overseas patents, enquiries can only be made in Korean.
Together with this, in order to provide greater convenience to patent information analysts, KIPO will provide the patent analysis tool, “PIAS”, for easier analysis of results downloaded. Officials from KIPO have commented that the promotion of the spread and use of patent information is paramount for the economic competitiveness of Korea. In the near future, they hope to expand their patent information database to include information from Germany and England. In times of disputes, they hope to provide support services to help industry-related enterprises and researches.
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