News

JPO Announcement on Special Treatment
　　for Hague Design Applications

International design registration applications based on the Hague Agreement are treated as design registration applications filed with the Japan Patent Office after they are registered(1) and published internationally. JPO rules for Hague design applications claiming priority to an earlier application require that the applicant provide that information when filing the international application and then submit a certified priority document to the JPO within three months from the international publication date. While the first requirement was generally understood, because the JPO issued no notice informing applicants of the requirement to submit certified priority documents, most applicants outside of Japan were unaware of the requirement, and many applicants failed to submit a certified priority document within the JPO deadline.

As this situation seemed unfair and harmed our clients, we filed an Appeal under the Administrative Appeal Act against the JPO. While our Appeal was pending, the JPO on October 28, 2016 announced that they would offer special treatment regarding the submission of certified priority documents for international design registration applications based on the Hague Agreement. Please see the following web page for more information:

https://www.jpo.go.jp/english/applications/isho_yusenken_e.htm

This remedial action will enable recognition of priority claims in several hundred design applications.

(1) In principle, the international registration date of an international application is the filing date of the international application. For example, when an international application is submitted directly to the International Bureau, the filing date is the date on which the International Bureau received the application (for all applications filed using e-filing and for most of applications filed using form DM/1), except applications that include failure for which the filing date must be changed to a later date.