Japan to Share AI Summaries of Patent Examination Cases with Emerging Nations; Protection of Companies’ Rights, Faster Process Times Sought

The Yomiuri Shimbun

2:00 JST, December 31, 2025

The Japan Patent Office plans to use artificial intelligence to create summaries of some of its past patent examinations and provide them to emerging nations starting in January.

By enabling the countries to reference patent examination precedents in Japan, the initiative aims to shorten the time it takes them to process patent applications.

The program will start in Thailand and be rolled out gradually to other nations with the aim of protecting the rights of Japanese companies as they expand overseas.

Countries involved in the initiative will provide lists of patents that they plan to examine. The patent office will create AI-generated summaries of its past patent examinations that are similar to those on the lists. The reasoning behind the determinations, among other things, will be included in the summaries.

The initiative aims to reduce the workload that the countries face.

A patent is the exclusive right to use and sell an invention. Since patents are usually only valid in the countries where they are obtained, companies and individuals must apply for and obtain patents in each country they operate in.

In Japan, patent examiners determine whether the claimed invention is novel and original.

According to the patent office, Japan’s patent examination process is one of the fastest in the world, with an average total wait of just over a year from the request date until the patent is granted. In the United States and European nations, the process is said to take about two years.

Emerging economies often do not have an efficient system in place to examine patents. In Thailand, for instance, it takes more than three years to complete the procedure. However, by combining the new initiative with an existing framework for expedited patent examination used by Japan and other countries, the time it takes for the countries included in the initiative to process a patent is expected to be reduced to about one year.

Japanese companies file about 2,900 patent applications annually in Thailand, followed by about 1,700 in Singapore and around 1,300 in Malaysia. Shortening the patent examination period is expected to enhance the protection of their rights.