Six Design Model Views May Not Be Better Than One

As of May 1, 2019, the Japan Patent Office (JPO) no longer requires that an application for a design right of a three-dimensional product designating Japan contains six (6) orthogonal views of the product for which protection is sought. Prior to this change, it was necessary to provide documents showing the top, bottom, front, back, left and right views of the product. Failure to do so would have resulted in the JPO issuing an automatic objection to the application.

The number of orthogonal views which must be included in an application in order for the application to be deemed appropriate is unspecified, i.e., the enclosed orthogonal views of the product will be judged to be sufficient when examined along with the entirety of the application. Thus, the JPO may still require that a particular application has six orthogonal views of the product to provide an adequate disclosure, while only requiring three or fewer orthogonal views for a different application.