Patent System Day

What Is Patent System Day?

Every August 14th is "Patent System Day" (専売特許の日, Senbai Tokkyo no Hi) in Japan. On August 14, 1885, Japan's first Patent Law — the Senbai Tokkyo Jōrei (専売特許条例, "Monopoly Patent Ordinance") — came into force. This was a landmark in Japan's Meiji-era legal modernization: the establishment of a formal intellectual property system that would protect inventors and encourage innovation by granting creators exclusive commercial rights to their inventions for a limited period. Note: while April 18th marks the promulgation of the patent law, August 14th marks its actual entry into force and the first day inventors could begin filing applications.

Japan's First Patent

The very first patent granted under Japan's new system — Patent No. 1, issued on August 14, 1885 — went to Hotta Zuishō (堀田瑞松) for a rust-preventing paint formulation. Over the following months and years, patents were filed for inventions ranging from textile machinery to food processing and pharmaceutical compounds, reflecting the breadth of Japan's rapid industrialization. The first patent examiner and architect of the system, Korekiyo Takahashi (高橋是清), would go on to become one of Japan's most influential economic statesmen and eventually Prime Minister.

Japan as a Patent Powerhouse

Japan has been among the world's leading patent-filing nations for decades. The Japanese Patent Office (特許庁, JPO) regularly ranks among the top five patent offices globally by application volume, alongside the USPTO (US), EPO (Europe), CNIPA (China), and KIPO (Korea). Japanese companies — Sony, Toyota, Canon, Panasonic, Hitachi, and many others — hold enormous global patent portfolios, and Japan's manufacturing and technology sectors are built on a foundation of intellectual property development and protection.

Patent Culture in Japan

Japan has developed a distinctive patent culture in which companies invest heavily in broad patent portfolios as competitive assets, and engineers are expected to disclose inventions systematically. The inventor compensation system (職務発明制度, shokumuhatsumeiseido) — which provides financial rewards to employee inventors whose patents generate commercial value — has been a subject of significant legal development, including landmark court cases brought by inventors seeking larger shares of the value their patents created.

Fun Facts

• Blue LED patent dispute: Shuji Nakamura, inventor of the blue LED, famously sued his former employer Nichia Corporation for a larger share of the compensation for his invention — eventually receiving a settlement of 840 million yen — in a case that prompted reform of Japan's inventor compensation laws.
• Patent term: Japanese patents are granted for 20 years from the filing date — the international standard established by the TRIPS Agreement — with pharmaceutical and agrochemical patents eligible for extensions of up to 5 years.