Tokyo Koto Saibansho Chiteki Zaisan Dai 1-Bu
Tokyo High Court, First Intellectual Property Division
Heisei 19 (Gyo-ke) no. 10369 (2008)
- Written by Eric Miller, JD
Facts
An American inventor (plaintiff) filed an international application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. The application described a dental-treatment system in which a database was used to identify a patient’s dental needs and develop a treatment plan. The Japanese patent examiner rejected the application, holding that the identification of dental needs and the development of a treatment plan were accomplished through the mental labor of the dentist. Thus, the patent examiner concluded, the application failed to claim to a new invention under Japanese patent law. The inventor requested judicial review of the examiner’s rejection. During the resulting proceedings, the inventor amended the patent application to specify that the dental-treatment system was a computer-based system. Nevertheless, the Japanese patent court dismissed the case. The inventor appealed to the Japan Intellectual Property High Court.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Tomokatsu, Tomonari, Koichi, J.J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 832,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,500 briefs, keyed to 994 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
