Japanese Software Patent

弁理士

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.

ビジネスコンサルタント

Hi Kai

I'm a New Zealand patent attorney helping businesses protect and commercialise their IP. My understanding is that software is patentable in Japan, provided it meets the usual tests for novelty (not known, published or used anywhere prior to the application date) and inventive (not obvious in light of what has gone before). Often software patents struggle on the inventive/obviousness issue. So much will depend on what exactly your software does, and whether it is just computerizing a normal human transaction, or is doing something a bit different. Ultimately, you should take advice from a Japanese patent attorney - although there is no real need to do that right now - you can file a provisional patent application in your home market, which buys you 12 months to decide which other countries to go into. You can extend that flexibility and timeline further by filing a PCT application, which will give you another 18-19 months to decide which countries are most relevant.

Other protection means include copyright in the source code - this protects copying of the code, but doesn't stop someone from using the same idea and writing their own code.

Of course, you should also consider registering your brand/software name as a trademark in important countries too.

Good luck with it!