Decision Trends of IPHC

The IPHC was established in April 2005, being responsible for appeals from the patent office for patentability and appeals from district courts for infringement suits of the intellectual property rights. In the first year, the IPHC handled 430 cases, of which about 320 cases were related to the patents and about 110 cases were mostly to the trademarks.

The average proceeding term was about 9 months for the appeals from the patent office and 10 months for the appeals from the district courts in the first year. A decade ago, the Tokyo High Court, former court of IPHC, took about double. IPHC has shortened the proceeding.

According to the Patent Office, IPHC denied patentability of 14 cases or 40 % traversing the decisions of the board of appeals of Patent Office. Among 141 cases appealed from the rejections made by the Patent Office, only 9.2% were reversed, which is less than a half of 19.7% at the Tokyo High Court in 2000.

Information from: Nikkei News paper, May 8, 2006