An annual intellectual property (IP) conference, called IP Week 2018, was held in Singapore from September 4 to 5, hosted by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS). Taking this opportunity, the 8th Japan-ASEAN Heads of Intellectual Property Offices Meeting was also held, on September 4th.

At the Japan-ASEAN Heads of Intellectual Property Offices Meeting on the 4th, the Heads of the Japan Patent Office (JPO) and the ASEAN IP Offices agreed an action plan as a basis for the Offices to cooperate on responding to IP issues for fiscal year 2018. In addition, Japan and the ASEAN countries reached an agreement to cooperate on developing patent-examination guidelines and its operation, especially for advanced technologies such as the Internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI).

At IP Week 2018 on the 4, JPO Commissioner Munakata participated in the Plenary and delivered a speech on the JPO’s initiatives to further advance the utilization of IP by start-ups.

On the 5, the JPO and the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) co-hosted a special session on the topic of “Keeping Up with New Technologies”. They delivered speeches and held a panel discussion attended by companies, lawyers and patent attorneys.

Source: JPO