International Activities

The Trilateral Patent Offices & Users Meeting in Yokohama, Japan

The Trilateral Patent Offices and Users Meeting between the patent offices (JPO, USPTO and EPO) and users was held in Yokohama Intercontinental Hotel, Japan on March 3, 2015. Presidents and Vice presidents attended from the trilateral offices, and JIPA, AIPLA & IPO, Business Europe attended as trilateral users. Mr. Takemoto, president, Mr. Suzuki, vice president, Mr. Okumura and Mr. Ueno, ex-president, Ms. Miyashita, leader of the International Policy PJ, Mr. Morita, assistant leader of the International Policy PJ, and some other members participated in the meeting from JIPA.

In the meeting, the Trilateral Offices first introduced recent activities of each office and then reported progress of the patent harmonization discussion items that was submitted by the IP5 users, which are “Unity of Invention”, “Written Description Requirement” and “Prior Art”. After that, the participants exchanged their views.
JIPA explained differences among the Trilateral Offices in the judgment on “Unity of Invention” and “Witten Description Requirement” in the list of discussion items which JIPA had researched and studied, identified issues to be solved, and proposed approach to how the discussion should be conducted. The trilateral Offices expressed their thanks in the research and analysis of JIPA, and the patent harmonization discussion items will be examined by the IP5 offices. The Trilateral Offices also reported progress of the Global Dossier, and then we exchanged opinions.

Before the above joint meeting, we had the 22nd Trilateral User Meeting among only users on March 2 at the JIPA Tokyo office. In the meeting, we discussed about how to proceed with discussions on the list of patent harmonization discussion items and the Global Dossier. We exchanged opinions on each topic in preparation for the meeting with the Trilateral Patent Offices on the following day.

The next trilateral meeting will be held in USA at next spring.

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