The Japan Patent Office (JPO), the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), and the Korea Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) carry out comparative studies of patent laws and examination guidelines, as well as a comparative case studies on selected topics, every year. Since 2009, the three offices have carried out trilateral comparative studies on patent laws and examination guidelines concerning novelty, inventive step, and support/enablement/clarity requirements, as well as comparative case studies on novelty and inventive step. Last year, an additional trilateral comparative study on amendment requirements and an additional comparative case study concerning the support/enablement/clarity requirements were conducted. The reports of the additional comparative studies (English version) were posted on April 16th, 2015.

Regarding the comparative case study, the report covers six cases, three of which show that the Japanese, the Chinese, and the Korean examination practices differ in their assessment of the support/enablement/clarity requirements for a second medical use (Case 1), a production method using microorganism (Case 2), and a pharmaceutical compound (Case 3).

The results of the comparative studies can be viewed at http://www.jpo.go.jp/torikumi_e/kokusai_e/comparative_study.htm .