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Japan IP court rejects Patent Cooperation Treaty claims in inventorship dispute

By Toko Sekiguchi ( May 9, 2025, 10:30 GMT | Insight) -- In a decision that effectively dismissed all contested claims, Japan’s Intellectual Property High Court held that merely filing a Patent Cooperation Treaty application does not confer enforceable patent rights without corresponding national phase entries — and that because key technical contributions to the blood vessel plug invention came from an external professor rather than from an internal employee, the disputed invention could not be treated as a work-for-hire employee invention.In a decision that effectively dismissed all contested claims, Japan’s Intellectual Property High Court held that merely filing a Patent Cooperation Treaty, or PCT, application does not confer enforceable patent rights without corresponding national phase entries — and that because key technical contributions to the blood vessel plug invention came from an external professor rather than from an internal employee, the disputed invention could not be treated as a work-for-hire employee invention....

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