Patent Office’s Patent

  • June 25, 2020

#patent #trademark

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.)

Bellmark

  • June 17, 2020

#trademark

Collecting bellmarks is one of the PTA (Parent-teacher association) activity and I was involved in collecting and counting the bellmarks for my children’s school so I started collecting them. When I look at it in my daily life, I sometimes find myself unexpectedly discovering a bell mark in a product package, which makes me happy.

According to J-PlatPat, Bellmark was registered for Japanese trademark in 1982 and 2009. Though it is a familiar mark in Japan, it was registered as an aid/division for educational institution recently in 2009. The collected bellmarks will be used to purchase books and equipment for each school.

The actual counting was a daunting task of counting the cut-out marks by hand, but if it’s for the children, that steady activity may also be meaningful.
Why don’t you try to collect them too? (Marigold)

Bellmark Educational Foundation Homepage (Japanese)
https://www.bellmark.or.jp/

J-PlatPat Bellmark Trademark Registration (1982)
https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/c1800/TR/JP-1977-038321/AC6F1A75C30570CF4B439642AB97287F7E6D8DBE7E4406FD96115CE2AB437A80/40/ja
J-PlatPat Bellmark Trademark Registration (2009)
https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/c1800/TR/JP-2009-045473/E6D467DB16225D9305B2DA42EC2CD8A4D0988DBBB6408905440286EFB31B0E8B/40/ja

Pavement block

  • June 10, 2020

#design

Let me introduce a design which you can casually see.
Today, I would like to introduce “Pavement blocks”.
The image below shows the perspective view (Image 1) and a reference diagram showing the usage (Image 2).

In the usage diagram, there is the green area (緑化部) between the pavement blocks(本物品) which makes the pavement block like force behind the edge because you can only see the surface with your eyes.
It is Japanese Design Registration No. 1417594.
If you are interested in the registered information, see the following link (J-PlatPat) for more information. (shou)
https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/c1800/DE/JP-2010-025960/54F20DB83D8DA28BA77666EAAD068C9FA35126109EA5C23F1351DF72F2B3DAD1/30/ja

Chocolate snack, Takenoko no Sato

  • June 3, 2020

#trademark

I found boxes of popular Japanese chocolate snack, “Takenoko no Sato” in soybean powder and brown sugar syrup flavor, displayed in a supermarket. It is made by Meiji Holdings Co., Ltd.

https://www.meiji.com/global/about-us/ (Company website in English)

https://www.meiji.co.jp/sweets/chocolate/kinotake/products/kuromitsu-takenoko/ (information on the subject product in Japanese)

I like this combination among the Japanese-style flavors, and as I expected, it was delicious.
The shape of “Kinoko no Yama”, which is a sister product, is registered as a three-dimensional trademark (Trademark Registration No. 6031305), but this “Takenoko no Sato” is under examination (Trademark Application No. 2018-71264). Like ” Kinoko no Yama”, I wonder if it will be registered as a three-dimensional trademark in the future as well. (time)