Overview

The Act on Amendment to the Patent was rolled out on 8 June 2011 and is scheduled to come into force within one year. The Amendments will make changes to a number of laws in Japan relating to the treatment of intellectual property rights, including the Patent Act Japan.

The Amendments will address a number of issues with the current Act and will focus on five key areas including: enhanced protection for unregistered license agreements; establishing remedies for an ‘unauthorized application’; narrowing the scope of events whereby an invention will lose its novelty; streamlining patent invalidation and correction procedures; and restriction of retrial.