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Japanese Patent Law
Japanese patent law is based on the first-to-file principle and is mainly given force by the of Japan. Article 2 defines an invention as "the highly advanced creation of technical ideas utilizing the law of nature". English translation The definitive version of Japanese law is the text in the Japanese language. An official English-language translation of the law does not exist, but the Ministry of Justice Japan has the website "Japanese Law Translation", where one can search for Japanese laws and their unofficial English translation. Intellectual property (IP) laws such as Patent Act, Copyright Act, Trademark Act, Design Act and Unfair Competition Prevention Act are included there. In addition, the Industrial Property Digital Library (IPDL) offers public access to IP Gazettes of the Japan Patent Office (JPO) free of charge through the Internet. Reliable information on Japanese IP law in English is also provided by the websites of Intellectual Property High Court, Japan Pate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First To File And First To Invent
First to file (FTF) and first to invent (FTI) are legal concepts that define who has the right to the grant of a patent for an invention. The first-to-file system is used in all countries. There is an important difference between the strict nature of the FTF under the European Patent Office, European Patent Office (EPO) and the FITF (First inventor to file) system of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The USPTO FITF system affords early disclosers some "grace" time before they need to file a patent, whereas the EPO does not recognise any grace period, so early disclosure under the FITF provisions is an absolute bar to later EPO patent. First to file In a first-to-file system, the right to the grant of a patent for a given invention lies with the first person to file a patent application for protection of that invention, regardless of the date of actual invention. First to disclose The concept of a grace period ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |