Japanese patent translation is an important aspect to being able to protect your company's products in Japan and other Japanese markets.

1. What Your Company Needs to Know

2. To receive a high quality Japanese patent
translation, it’s necessary to know some
basics about Japanese patents and the
Japanese Patent Office.

4. • The Japanese language has a
tendency to have problems with
incorrect translations.
• Katakana, Japanese characters,
has a completely different
language structure than English,
causing translation difficulties.
• Without an intensive quality
control process, it’s very easy to
let translation errors slip
through.

5. • Japan provides access
to a large amount of
prior art.
• The EPO provides free
machine translation for
Japanese-to-English
files.
• Be sure to research
prior art before filing.

6. • Businesses that are based
outside of Japan do need a
Japanese patent
administrator.
• This person can be a patent
attorney, but doesn’t have
to be.
• The administrator is
essentially the foreign agent
and makes sure the filing
process goes smoothly.

7. • Japan has a higher grant rate than the
EPO, United States PO and Korean PO.
• Thorough prior art research and
translation will strengthen the claim of
your patent.

9. • A Request for Examination must be filed
within 3 years of submitting the patent
application.
• The JPO will not review the patent until
the request is submitted.