Asia IP

In order to meet the increasingly sophisticated and diversified needs for patent information, the Japan Platform for Patent Information (J-PlatPat) will replace the existing Intellectual Property Digital Library (IPDL) on March 23, 2015.

“There is no disadvantage in launching J-PlatPat, because it will cover various services which are broader than the scope of the IPDL,” says Akihiko Eguchi, a partner at TMI Associates in Tokyo.

J-PlatPat will offer user-friendly services and provide information about intellectual property, including information on patents, designs and trademarks, through such means as enhanced search-service functions, a renovated user interface, cooperation with external service providers, and a service to download bulk data on patent publications, etc (for private information service providers). In the future, in order to provide the enhanced services more widely, further consideration will be given to the feasibility of more expeditious provision of information, references to patent family information, and cooperation in services with other foreign IP offices.

“J-PlatPat will offer an easier user interface for those unfamiliar with the patent system and at the same time it will allow experienced users to perform complex searches,” says Seiji Ohno, managing partner at Ohno & Partners in Tokyo. “This is to raise the accessibility to patent information to a wide range of users since the needs to it have diversified in recent years.”

If J-PlatPat becomes widely used, the number of applications in Japan may change, says Yoshiyuki Inaba, managing partner at TMI Associates in Tokyo. “As J-PlatPat allows prior art documents and the trends of other companies’ technological developments to be easily searched and found, the number of fruitless applications may decrease and the number of important patent applications may increase.”

Against the backdrop of focused R&D investment and smooth overseas business activities by Japanese companies, the users’ needs for patent information, which is a huge source of information on technologies, are becoming more sophisticated and diversified.