Japan

In the past, Japanese patent litigations were notorious for being slow, having narrow claim interpretation, low damages awards, poor evidence collection procedures, and having a low winning rate. Cases and Materials on Patent Law, Second Edition says, "No countries' patent system has received more criticism than that of Japan. Among the chief complaints is that the courts award patent claims with an extremely narrow scope, and that the Doctrine of Equivalents does not exist at all." Global Patent Litigation: How and Where to Win, Third Edition, edited by Finnegan says that the winning rate of patentees from 2006 to 2016 was 24% in Japan, ranked second from the bottom out of the 10 countries. However, Japanese patent litigation has been reformed and is now transformed in order to be more convenient for patentees than ever before.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, pioneering pharmaceutical makers, research institutes, and universities are working in collaboration to develop novel antiviral drugs that are small compounds and vaccines. Although most inventions produced this year will be disclosed when their patent applications are published next year, the inventions being developed before this pandemic have already been disclosed.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution along with the spread of the IoT means that SEP licensing negotiations are expected to be held more often between SEP holders in the information and communication technology field and business entities in industries other than the telecommunications industry, especially multi-component products industries such as automobiles, game machines etc. However, risks involving SEP licensing negotiations and disputes have been increasing significantly because licensing negotiation practices and market views on royalties are very different between the above business entities and SEP holders. Being aware of such issues, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) published the Guide to Fair Value Calculation of Standard Essential Patents for Multi-Component Products (the basic concept) on April 21 2020. The basic concept has been formulated based on the report (dated March 31 2020) of the Study Group on Fair Value Calculation of Standard Essential Patents for Multi-Component Products (report), commissioned by the Policy Planning and Coordination Division, Manufacturing Industries Bureau, the METI.

As of October 1 2019, the Tokyo District Court and the Osaka District Court started operating a new practice for mediation concerning IP rights (IP mediation). IP mediation is designed to solve disputes over IP rights in a simple and speedy way by obtaining opinions on the dispute, in principle, by the third mediation date, from the mediation committee composed of the judge of the IP division and experts such as lawyers and patent attorneys with vast experience in dealing with IP cases. IP mediation is a judicial service providing the third dispute resolution tool within the framework of existing laws. It is unique and different from litigation and provisional disposition.

Vikrant Rana of SS Rana analyses Japan and India’s close relationship in the field of IP, examining the Patent Prosecution Highway programme, the countries’ digital partnership and the establishment of a start-up hub

Shimpei Kuroda of Shiga analyses data on applications for AI inventions, examining AI’s use in fields as various as traffic control and medical diagnosis