The advantage of Japanese Patent Publication and Japanese abstract
A great number of Japanese Patent publications have been accumulated with fine and consistent classification with minimum miswriting or misclassification in JPO. Therefore, when the objective Invalidity material is contained in the Japanese Patent publications, it may be found effectively without omission.
In 1996, the number of Japanese Patent publication was around 400,000/year, which is 65% of the total worldwide patent publication. The number of Japanese Patent publication has been almost the same until 2007 while the percentage of the worldwide publication has gradually decreased depending on the increase of the number of other countries Patent publication. Even the number of Japanese Patent publication decreases from 2008, it still has 22 % of the worldwide publication in 2010 (data prepared by JPO).
It is widely known that JPO finely classifies patent publication with specific classification codes.
From the above, Japanese Patent publication is accumulated for long time resulting in huge mega-data arranged according to fine classification. Hence, Japanese patent publication is advantageous in searching for the prior art.
As for Chinese publications which have increased in recent years to account for 40 % of the worldwide publication in 2010, Japanese abstract data of Chinese utility model prepared by machine-translation can be available from March of 2012. These machine-translated data are prepared from English abstract data. However, human-checking might be conducted in the future and reliability may increase. In addition, until March of 2013, Japanese abstract data of Chinese Patent will be prepared.
With respect to Japanese abstracts of US Patent and EPO application which have no corresponding Japanese Patent application, they have been manually translated and available as before.
From the above, Japanese abstracts of Patent publication of US and EPO and Chinese utility model are classified and arranged in relatively high quality enabling higher quality search.
Why we can provide with high quality searching service
Today, we have many searching companies in Japan. However, many clients feel frustration on unstable quality of the searching results. Some of the reasons may relate to (i) each searcher has different levels of skills and abilities, (ii) a searcher is sometimes unable to understand the object and/or target of searching sufficiently. These reasons can be solved by involvement of a patent attorney who has legal knowledge of IP and searching skills and is able to communicate with client.
However, Japanese patent attorneys have been used to deal with prosecution procedures before JPO and have little motivation to develop searching skills that is very difficult and time-consuming. Hence, Japanese patent attorneys having reliable searching skills are very rare except for in-house searcher patent attorney of big pharmaceutical companies.
We have worked patent and trademark prosecution procedures for more than 15 years in Patent offices in chemical field, dealing cases of domestic and foreign big, medium-sized or small companies including English translation. We have experienced some ex parte and inter parte court cases and also made written statements of an expert opinion on patents. Based on the experiences, we are skilled in usage of various technical terms indicating the same, generic or specific concept as well as in various technical procedures, thus we are able to select keywords and to understand sorting codes easily.
In recent years, we have developed patent searching skills by attending high class seminar held by National Center for Industrial Property Information and Training (INPIT) which is an extra-departmental body of Japan Patent Office (JPO) and by attending Information Science and Technology Association Japan (INFOSTA) as a member. As a result, we learned to prepare and assess searching formulae showing search quality and have the acquaintance of good searchers.
When you have a plan to search for Japanese prior art, please make contact with us.