Administrative Proceeding of Patent And Trademark Cases to Be Abbreviated.

TIPO is proposing to change the administrative proceeding of patent and trademark cases in line with the institution of the Special Intellectual Property Court.  The proposed amendment will center on reducing the maximum tiers of the proceeding from four to three and reforming the referee from one single judge to a tribunal.

According to the amendment TIPO has proposed, the decision on review of a patent or a trademark registration may proceed up through three instances to be final with binding effects.  The dispute will first be reviewed by a penal formed by senior examiners with TIPO.  On appeal, the Special IP Court will examine the factual and the legal aspects both of the decision.  On appeal further, the case will go through the judicial review in the Supreme Administrative Court. 

In an administrative action arising from dispute over a patent or trademark registration, TIPO is quite often involved as the competent authority and as a party at the same time.  Therefore, by reference to the relevant system adopted in Japan, TIPO proposes to divide administrative actions into two groups according to the parties to the action:  those involving TIPO and the applicant/holder of the patent or trademark in question as parties to the action and those involving the applicant/holder and an interested person as parties to the action.

One of the breakthroughs being proposed is that the case will be tried by a tribunal and, in pursuit of centralized examination of issues in dispute, the parties to the action will present their argument orally.  (2006.11)

/EMA