Legislative Implementation of Flexibilities - Japan

Title:	Articles 3-4 of the Utility Model Act No. 123 of 1959 as last amended by Act No. 55 of 2006
Field of IP:	Patents
Type of flexibility:	Utility models
Summary table:

Provisions of Law

Article 3 (Conditions for Utility Model Registration)

(1) A creator of a device that relates to the shape or structure of an article or combination of articles and is industrially applicable may be entitled to obtain a utility model registration for the said device, except when the following applies:

(i) the device was publicly known in Japan or a foreign country, prior to the filing of the application for a utility model registration therefor;

(ii) the device was publicly worked in Japan or a foreign country, prior to the filing of the application for a utility model registration therefor; or

(iii) the device was described in a distributed publication, or a device that was made publicly available through an electric telecommunication line in Japan or a foreign country, prior to the filing of the application for a utility model registration therefor.

(2) Where, prior to the filing of the application for a utility model registration, a person ordinarily skilled in the art of the device would have been exceedingly easy to create the device based on a device prescribed in any of the items of the preceding paragraph, a utility model registration shall not be granted for such a device notwithstanding the preceding paragraph.

Article 3-2

Where a device claimed in an application for a utility model registration is identical with a device or invention (excluding a device created or an invention made by the creator of the device claimed in the said application for a utility model registration) disclosed in the description, scope of claims or drawings (in the case of the written application in foreign language under Article 36-2(2) of the Patent Act, the document in foreign language as provided in Article 36-2(1)) originally attached to the written application of another application for a utility model registration or for a patent which has been filed prior to the date of filing of the said application for a utility model registration and published after the filing of the said application for a utility model registration in the utility model bulletin under Article 14(3) (hereinafter the "Utility Model Bulletin") or in the patent bulletin under Article 66

(3) of the Patent Act describing matters provided for in each of the paragraphs of the respective Article or for which the publication of the patent application has been effected, a utility model registration shall not be granted for such a device notwithstanding paragraph (1) of the preceding Article; provided, however, that this shall not apply where, at the time of the filing of the said application for a utility model registration, the applicant of the said application and the applicant of the other application for a utility model registration or for a patent are the same person.

Article 4 (Unregistrable devices)

Notwithstanding Article 3(1), any device that is liable to injure public policy or public health shall not be granted a utility model registration.