Japanese Patent Office Joins Others — WIPO Trademark Database to Include Japan's Trademarks

Beginning January 2015, the Japanese Patent Office (JPO) will begin providing the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) with registered trademark gazettes from January 2000 going forward. It is expected that the addition of Japanese pending and registered marks will facilitate global branding strategies.

The database, called the Global Brand Database, was started in February 2013 and is the world’s largest database of trademark registrations and applications. It is possible to search design or image marks as well as word marks. As of May 2014, a new image retrieval function was added, allowing users to input image files to search for marks with similar features.

The database is free of charge and includes trademark registrations and applications provided by sixteen participating trademark offices. The current participants include the U.S., Australia, Canada, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, the Philippines, Denmark, Israel, Morocco, Egypt, Cambodia, Estonia, UAE, Oman and Algeria. 

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