International Activities

　On June 20, 2017, "Cornerstones for harmonization: a B+ Sub-Group/ Industry Symposium" (hereinafter referred to as the Symposium) was held at the EPO in Munich, Germany, in which Ms. Miyashita, leader of the International Policy PJ, and Mr. Yoshioka, Chairperson of the 2nd International Patent Committee, participated. The trilateral users (JIPA, AIPLA, IPO, BE) expressed opinions on several issues in the substantive patent law harmonization, and discussed the development of the substantive patent law harmonization with users of other regions and members of the B+ Subgroup (consisting of the patent offices of Canada, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Spain, UK, US, and EPO).

　This symposium was held to gather as many opinions as possible from the users, i.e., stakeholders of the systems, mainly on the 4 main items: grace period (corresponding to the provision of exceptions to lack of novelty in Japan), conflicting applications (the effect of excluding later applications provided by an earlier application before publication), rights of prior use, and 18-month publication. Chair of the Group B+, Director General of IP Australia, repeatedly expressed her thanks for the trilateral users' efforts and contributions in their work, which reminded us of the influence of the trilateral users again.

　The next day, the trilateral users were invited to some part of the B+ Subgroup meeting (among the patent offices), in which the patent offices asked the trilateral users questions about the schedule of their work, and invited the users to participate in the next B+ Subgroup meeting. We felt that there were high expectations on future activities of the trilateral users.