Examination results regarding Japanese patents and trademarks can be reached more easily

Starting from May 7, 2019, the Japan Patent Office (JPO) in principle publishes examination results within one day.

Previously, examination results in Japan were published in about 3 weeks after issuance.

The JPO database has been renewed and examination documents regarding design and trademark applications, which had not been published before the renewal, can be reached.

For more details, please see the JPO website.

Postscript as of May 31, 2019:

In relation to the above revision to the JPO procedures, the J-PlatPat (Japan Platform for Patent Information) was drastically renewed, but it does not work well even after one month. In particular, we usually download PDF copies of publications when patent/trademark applications are published and send them to our clients. However, at the renewed website, the file size of a PDF copy is huge, about ten fold increase. Therefore, we have to use other channels, such as WIPO, Espacenet, etc.,  to obtain copies of Japanese publications, but there is about two weeks time-lag.