Japanese Software Patent

Nice to see your interesting post. I'm Hajime Fujita, a Japanese patent attorney specilized in the IT field.

To acquire patents in worldwide, you should have a patent application to the Taiwan patent office before applying foreign patent offices, including the Japan patent office (JPO), because you can file the translation based on the Taiwan application via a Taiwan patent attorney.

Although a cloud related software is generally patentable in Japan, you have to cross over the following three hurdles (patent requirements) provided in the Japanese patent law:

(1) description requirement; some Taiwan applications will face the problem based on this requirement due to the difference of the language structure between the Taiwan language and Japanese; you should then consult a professional Taiwan patent attorney in advance at the timing of the Taiwan patent application;
(2) novelty; you should not disclose your software before the first priority date (the date of the Taiwan application); and
(3) inventive step; JPO tends to require a higher inventive step than other foreign offices; most applications are then rejected by this requirement.

You will have to pay the following costs to acquire a Japanese patent:
(1) official fee for JPO; it includes application fee, examination fee and registration fee;
(2) attorney's fee in Taiwan; and
(3) attorney's fee in Japan.

The cost will vary according to volume of the application documents and attorneys.

Please note the following two points:
(1) applicant in Taiwan have to prepare the translation and file it to the foeign patent offices within ONE YEAR of the Taiwan patent application, because Taiwan is not an affiliate country of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT); I recommend you to spend time making the translated documents to satisfy the above description requrement; and
(2) the source code of your software can be protected from the dead copy by the Japanese copyright law, but the technical idea cannot; the patent is the only way to protect your idea.