It is expected that the Japanese Patent laws will be amended to allow the recovery of overdue national entry of a PCT patent application with an official fee of 297,000 yen. The cabinet submitted such a bill to the Diet on March 2, 2021. The date of implementation has not yet been decided, however, it should be around June 2021. It is unlikely, but there is still a small possibility that it will be changed during the parliamentary debates.

This bill also covers other procedures, such as missing deadlines for filing an application in Japan based on Paris Convention, filing a request for examination, payment of annuities, etc.

The JPO’s official fee for each remedy per case in the bill are as follows: