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Shortened life spans of biotech pioneer patents in Japan: a lesson from the DNA chip

Nature Biotechnology volume 25, pages 533–535 (2007)Cite this article

Strict examinations have resulted in drastically shortened life spans for a broad range of biotech 'pioneer' patents in Japan.

In today's climate of increasing globalization, biotech companies need to acquire strong patent protection for their products and technologies in all countries where they wish to operate. Thus, the international harmonization of patent terms for identical inventions is urgently required. However, the reality of the disparity in patent terms among countries, owing to differences in patent protection policies, has not been fully appreciated.

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Figure 1: The short life spans of DNA chip pioneer patents in Japan.
Figure 2: Prolonged examination is an issue that is especially pronounced for pioneer patent applications in Japan.
Figure 3: The short life spans of pioneer biotech patents is a common problem in Japan.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Y. Yoshikawa and M. Muramatsu (Tokyo Medical and Dental University) and H. Shimizu and K. Shimmi (Shimizu Patent Office) for providing suggestions and comments. This analysis has been supported by Special Coordination Funds for Promoting Science and Technology (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Atsuo Konishi and Kazunori Hashimoto are in the Intellectual Property Division, Tomomi Aida, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, 1-5-45, Yushima, Bunkyo-Ku, Tokyo, 113-8510, Japan. hashimoto.tlo@tmd.ac.jp,

    Tomomi Aida, Atsuo Konishi & Kazunori Hashimoto

  2. Tomomi Aida is also at the Laboratory of Molecular Neuroscience, School of Biomedical Science, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, 1-5-45, Yushima, Bunkyo-Ku, Tokyo, 113-8510, Japan, and the Laboratory for Neural Architecture, Advanced Technology Development Group, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan.,

    Tomomi Aida

  3. Masatoshi Hagiwara is at the Laboratory of Gene Expression, School of Biomedical Science, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, 1-5-45, Yushima, Bunkyo-Ku, Tokyo, 113-8510, Japan.,

    Masatoshi Hagiwara

Authors
  1. Tomomi Aida
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  2. Atsuo Konishi
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  3. Masatoshi Hagiwara
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  4. Kazunori Hashimoto
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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Fig. 1

The examinations for pioneer DNA chip patents in Japan are quite strict (PDF 73 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 2

Prolonged examinations for biotechnology pioneer patents take place in Japan (PDF 75 kb)

Supplementary Table 1

Restricted validities of claims for OGT pioneer patents (PDF 74 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

Restricted validities of claims for Affymetrix pioneer patents (PDF 73 kb)

Supplementary Note 1

Claims of OGT's and Affymetrix's patents (PDF 66 kb)

Supplementary Note 2

Struggle between Affymetrix and the JPO (PDF 63 kb)

Supplementary Note 3

Request examination (PDF 58 kb)

Supplementary Methods (DOC 25 kb)

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Aida, T., Konishi, A., Hagiwara, M. et al. Shortened life spans of biotech pioneer patents in Japan: a lesson from the DNA chip. Nat Biotechnol 25, 533–535 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0507-533

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