On 2 March 2018, the Trilateral Heads of Office met in Hakone, Japan. The 36th annual Trilateral conference was preceded by a meeting between the Trilateral Offices and Trilateral Industry.
The topics and presentations included:
Office updates from Trilateral Offices and WIPO
Topic 1: Substantive patent law harmonization
- Substantive patent law harmonization in Group B+ (presented by the JPO)
- Substantive Patent Harmonization: Recent Developments (presented by JIPA on behalf of Trilateral Industry)
Topic 2: Examination practice of computer related inventions
- Comparative study on software related inventions (presented by the JPO)
- The EPO approach to Computer Implemented Inventions (CII) (presented by the EPO)
Topic 3: Industry 4.0 and new technologies
- Fourth Industrial Revolution (presented by AIPLA)
- Report on utilization of AI (presented by IPO)
- IP activities with AI (presented by JIPA)
- EPO and Industry 4.0 (presented by the EPO)