Japanese Patent Law and Practice: Comparisons with Australia

In 2017, the Japan Patent Office (JPO) received more than 300,000 patent applications, including a substantial number from Australia. The JPO is the world’s third busiest patent office based on number of applications. To accommodate the all of these applications, the Japanese patent system has evolved both legally and practically. The Patent Act of Japan has been amended every few years since its enactment in 1959 to reflect these and other changing circumstances, and the JPO has been improving both the speed and quality of patent prosecution, setting a global benchmark. This seminar introduced the Japanese patent system and highlight some comparisons corresponding systems in Australia.

Kenta Kitamoto is a patent examiner at the Japan Patent Office (JPO). Currently, he was a visiting research scholar at Melbourne Law School where he was undertaking research on Australian intellectual property law. In 2006, he received a bachelor’s degree in information science from the University of Tokyo and joined the JPO, where he has engaged in not only examination of patent applications in the field of computers, mobile communication, telephony etc. but also administrative affairs including fee changes and legislative amendments. He waas in Australia for legal training and research since mid-2016 and was awarded a Master of Intellectual Property Law (MIPLaw) from the University of Melbourne in 2017.