The JPO recently announced revisions to the office’s Trademark Examination Guidelines. The guideline revisions, made “in order to respond to societal changes and to enable applicants to more accurately predict the results of trademark examinations, and to make trademark examination clearer and more understandable for users,” will apply to trademark examinations conducted on or after April 1, 2017.

The revisions include criteria for determining subject-mark similarity, judicial precedents with regard to the determining the famousness of another person’s name, and more.

For more information, please visit the METI (Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) website at the link below.

http://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2017/0328_001.html