International Activities
Participation at WIPO PCT-WG 7th Session
Mr. Yoshioka (NEC), deputy chairman of the Second International Committee, and Mr. Minato (IPICS), vice chairman of the Second International Committee, took part in the session of the PCT Working Group (PCT-WG) from JIPA, which was held at WIPO in Geneva, Switzerland, during June 10 to 13, 2014 and expressed opinions from the standpoint of the Japanese industry.This PCT-WG session is an international conference where governments of the member states, representatives of the international organizations, and user organizations meet together and talk about agenda items to be proposed to the PCT General Assembly in advance. This session has been held since 2008, and the session of this year is the 7th session.
In the session of this year, opinions from all the positions involved in the system, i.e., developed and developing countries, governments, and users were heard about various issues of the current system and efforts to solve such issues, mainly including (1) measures for improving the various procedures at the international stage for future development of the PCT system, (2) proposals for improvement in the PCT rules for the purpose of simplification of the procedures and sophistication of the described information in view of the progress of technology and the communication technology situation in recent years, and consensus among the member states has been achieved.
JIPA participated in the discussion from the perspective of an appropriate development of the PCT system which would provide benefits to both the Patent Offices and users. Especially for item (1), JIPA paid attention to attempts such as collaborative international search for improvement in quality of the international search reports and expressed expectations for the collection and publication of such data in the pilot program from the following viewpoint: not only effects for the Patent Office of each country but also effects for the users should be taken into account. For item (2), JIPA paid attention to remedies associated with sending and receiving documents in electronic form and expressed the expectation that unpredictable failure of user IT systems not due to the users themselves shall be included in the subjects of the remedies. These contents were also clearly noted in the Chairman's Summary.
While constructive discussions were made in this session including new proposals from various countries and organizations, the developing country group and the developed country group initially locked horns partially, which prolonged the discussions, on the agenda item that defines a new fee system adopting fee reduction and exemption for specific countries (especially, emerging countries) and the agenda item that defines a procedure for certifying a new international organization. These discussions continued from the first day to just before the scheduled completion time on the last day with some interruptions, and it was feared that the PCT-WG session would not end as scheduled. Ultimately, a wonderful chairmanship of the General Manager of the Australian Patent Office, who had worked for two consecutive years, and the constructive attitudes of the member states led to agreement on these agenda items, and the PCT-WG session was closed on time. From these circumstances, we again recognized the complex relationships among member states involved in the current PCT system.
The next PCT-WG session will be held during the same period in 2015 and detail discussions on the agenda items of the present session will be continued. JIPA will continue to express our opinions as a user group expected from the world for an appropriate development of the PCT system.
