How to Search for a Japanese Patent Prior Art

Locating or searching patent in Japanese is a very challenging and tricky task, and also costly, because of the complexity of Japanese patent system, huge number of patents stored at JPO, and language barrier. However, chances of uncovering pertinent prior art is quite high, because Japanese patent prior art is so difficult to search that a patent holder of a non-Japanese company mostly has not performed a thorough Japanese patent search before or after filling a patent application in the normal novelty / patentability search process, nor the patent examiner at USPTO due to the limited resource and time, and budget. In other words, Japanese patent prior art is an untouched gold mine in term of prior art information.

In this section, we provide some tips about Japanese patent search, including patent numbers search, patent validity search, novelty search, etc. using a few examples. If you have a specific search project, we would be happy to send you a proposal about Japan patent search together with some of our intellectual property search information.

• Japanese patent numbering system

Introduction about Japanese patent numbering system and how to search for a patent in Japanese.
• Search prior art in Japanese for navigation system / GPS

Examples of search Japanese prior art for automotive navigation system and satellite navigation device.

• Searching Japan Patent and Non-patent Literature for a GPS Navigation System


• Search Japan Patent for a Lithographic Method of Semiconductors


Tips and case studies of searching Japan patents relating to digital cameras:

• How to Search Japanese Patents for Digital Cameras


• Search Japan patents for Digital Cameras with unique parameter setting function


• Search Japan patents for Digital Cameras with image rotation during display


• More examples