In May, the Japan Patent Office (JPO) announced that it had acquired a patent right for a patent document search system.
The Patent Office has obtained a patent!? I was personally very surprised.
The inventors are seven examiners of the JPO, and the applicant is the Commissioner of the JPO because it is an employee invention.
There was no precedent of the patent right by the Patent Office.
A trademark application (domestic/international) has also been made for the system “ADPAS”, and it has already been registered internationally.
However, there were precedents for trademark rights by the Japan Patent Office.
We hope that this system will be used to efficiently search the vast number of patent documents in the world and to ensure stable and speedy and high-quality examination.
If you are interested in what kind of invention the ADPAS is, search on J-PlatPat! (Cacao)
[Title] Management system and management method
[PATENT NUMBER] Patent No. 6691280
[Patent holder] Commissioner of the Patent Office
(This picture was quoted from the website of the Ministry of Land,Infrastructure and Tourism.)