Design Law in Japan

Process of design registration:

1. Application:- In order to obtain a design right, an applicant must fill out the forms prescribed in the relevant ordinances and submit them to the Japan Patent Office.
2. Formality Check:- An application document submitted to the JPO will be checked to see whether it fulfills the necessary procedural and formal requirements. An invitation to correct will be made where necessary documents are missing or required sections have not been filled in.
3. Substantive Examination:- The examiner conducts substantive examination as to whether or not a design right should be granted for an application for design registration.
4. Notification of Reasons for Refusal:- Where a reason for refusal is found as a result of the review, a notice of reasons for refusal is given. In case of an international application for design registration, a notice of reasons for refusal shall be given through the Notification of Refusal to the International Bureau of World Intellectual Property Organization.
5. Written Argument / Amendment:- An applicant may submit either a written argument against a notification of reasons for refusal or an amendment that would nullify the reasons for refusal.
6. Decision of Registration:- Where no reason for refusal is found, a decision of registration is rendered. Where the reason for refusal has been overcome through submission of a written opinion or a written amendment of proceedings, and no other reason for refusal is found, a decision of registration is rendered.
7. Decision of Refusal:- Where the reason for refusal of which notice was given is determined not to have been overcome after reviewing the contents of a written opinion or a written amendment of proceedings, a decision of refusal is rendered.
8. Appeal against Decision of Refusal:- When dissatisfaction is in the decision of refusal of the examiner, the applicant may appeal against the decision of refusal.
9. Appeal Examination (against Decision of Refusal):- The appeal examination against the decision of refusal is performed by a collegial body of three or five appeal examiners. Decision of the appeal examiners is called an appeal decision.

When it is judged, as a result of appeal examination, that the reasons for refusal was solved, an appeal decision to register a design is performed, and when the appeal examiners judge that the reasons cannot be canceled and the design cannot be registered, an appeal decision of refusal is performed.

1. Registration (Registration Fee Payment):- When the applicant pays the registration fee subsequent to receipt of the decision to register, the design right shall be established.
2. Publication of Design Gazette:- A design gazette shall be published containing the contents of the right of design registration in order to inform the public of its establishment.

Required Documents:

Regarding drawings, in principle, a set of six views (front, rear, left and right sides, top and bottom) is required. Additional figures, e.g. perspective views can be included.

Regarding applicant(s) and designer(s), the names and addresses are necessary.

For claiming priority, WIPO DAS code can be submitted instead of priority certificate.

Time Frame:

An average term from filing to receiving the first notice (a first OA or a decision to registration in case no OA) are around 2 to 9 months.

Once a decision to registration is issued, an applicant needs to pay its registration fee in 30 days and a registration certificate is issued around a month from the payment.

Multiple Designs:

The Japanese Design Act has one-design one-application rule. There is the multiple design application system under the Japanese Design Act. However, it is almost same with filing multiple single design applications. When filing a multiple design application, an initial formality examination is conducted altogether but then the JPO provides different application numbers per design, examinations are conducted per design separately, each design is registered under different registration number and treated as a separate independent registration. Costs including official fees are multiplied by the number of designs in case of multiple design application.

Apart from above, filing one single design application containing several designs using a format of single design application, not a multiple design application, is often chosen by applicants. The initial filing costs are for the above one design application. A first office action will be issued based on the one-design one-application rule. Then the applicant could choose one of designs for the current application, and at the same time, could file divisional application(s) for the lest of designs.