In 2002, there were 33,224 patents filed in the US from Japan. That's 20% of the total patents filed in the US. The tranaslation of Japanese patents is primarly done by Japanese nationals. These translations are often defective because the English language skills of the translators were inadequate to deal with the subtleties required to express complex thoughts. A lack of a scientific background also commonly contributes to a lack of clarity. Something gets lost in the translation. If you've had these problems, please consider my services. Also, feel free to download the patent dictionaries described below.

Several Japanese patent vocabulary lists have been published on the Internet. I coverted some of this information into electronic dictionary format for my own use. These files have the EDICT format and can be used in any dictionary program capable of manipulating EDICT files. The files can also be used in word processors that can handle Japanese characters and euc files. These files are offered for free download here; they are named patent.euc (49K) and patent2.euc (63K).

The file "patent.euc" was compiled from the two patent glossaries that William Lise maintained on his site. One was a general Japanese-to-English Patent Glossary, and the other was "Two-Kanji Compounds that are used in Patent Specifications." Bill Lise (New-Tech, Ltd. www.lise.jp) has given me permission to offer the electronic-dictionary version here.

I use both dictionaries together as they often provide slightly different information on the same vocabulatry words. (Note: For the most part, these glossaries do not yet include kana pronounciations, so you will have to search the dictionaries with characters.)

If you don't already have a good Japanese dictionary program, I highly recommend the free Japanese word-processing program, JWPce. It can be downloaded at www.physics.ucla.edu/~grosenth/c_download.html. Put all the files, including these dictionaries in the same directory. Then run the JWPce program. To install the dictionaries select Utilities, Dictionary, Options, Dictionaries, Add, Browse, Patent.euc, OK, OK, OK, Done. You can attach multiple dictionaries, and they will all be automatically searched. The JWPce program is also a convenient way to generate Japanese text to use when doing patent searches, and it can be used to change Japanese file formats from one type to another (Utilities, Options, File/Clipboard, Clipboard options).

Two web sites allow free searches of Japanese patents. The Japanese patent office has the most complete Japanese patent collection, but it has a confusinginterface, is often off line, and behaves erratically. It is generally easier to search Japanese patents using the European Patent Office at ep.espacenet.com/. The legibility of the patents they offer isexcellent. However, the documents are scanned rather than being electronic text files. The correct form for entering numbers for Japanese patents on the European site is 1) the abbreviation for Japan, JP; 2) followed by the year, and 3) a six-digit number (example, JP2006000001).

The English language site for patent searching at the Japan Patent Office is
www4.ipdl.ncipi.go.jp/Tokujitu/tjsogodben.ipdl?N0000=115.
The Japanese language search site is www6.ipdl.ncipi.go.jp/Tokujitu/tjsogodb.ipdl?N0000=101
(If clicking on these URL's do not take you to the site, try copying the URL's into your browser window.)

The Japan Patent Office provides fewer options on the English search page than on the Japanese page. The Japanese search page gives you the option of obtaining the document as a pdf file. Also, staring with patents published in 1995 and later, you may be able to obtain the patents as electronic text files.

For patent number searches, the input format is H01-000001. (Date followed by a six-digit number.Pad the numbers with leading zeros if necessary.) Starting in the year 2000, it is possible to use either Western calendar years or Japanese era years(example, either 2000-123456 or H12-123456). "H" stands for the Heisei era; add 1988 to the Heisei number to convert to the Western calendar date. "S" stands for the Showa era; add 1925. "T" stands for Taisho, add 1911; and "M" is for Meiji, add 1867. (Note: During 1989 there was a transition from Showa 64 to Heisei 1. All Showa 64 dates must be converted to Heisei 1.)

If you have trouble using the Japanese Patent Office web site, it may because it is blocked by a program on your computer. Norton Utilities is notorious for interfering with the Japanese Patent Office. (To fix this problem on Norton Internet Security 2006, open Norton Internet Security and click on the "Norton Internet Secutity" tab. Then click on "Personal Firewall", "Configure", "Networking", "Trusted", "Add", and "Individually". Then enter one URL's that is being blocked. Click "Add" again to add an additional URL. I have the following three URL's entered, "www.ipdl.ncipi.go.jp", "www4.ipdl.ncipi.go.jp", and "www6.ipdl.ncipi.go.jp".)

A usful publication entitled "A Guide to Japan's Patent System" can be downloaded at www.technology.gov/Reports/JapanPatent/pages.pdf. It was published in 1995 by theU.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Technology Policy, Asia–Pacific Technology Program and was authored by Mindy L. Kotler and Gary W. Hamilton, Esq. It is an Acrobat file and is 72 pages long (511K).