Japanese PatentArticle 30 provides a six-month grace period for disclosures made through an experiment, publication, presentation at a study meeting or an exhibition (a trade fair or the World's Fair) or for if the invention becomes known to public against the applicant's will. Such disclosures do not form part of the prior art. This is in line with the European patent law but is significantly narrower than that provided by the United States patent law. Japanese patent law is based on the first-to-file principle and is mainly given force by the Patent Act of Japan, which consists of 204 articles. Article 2 defines an invention as "the highly advanced creation of technical ideas by which a law of nature is utilized". Other important Articles include Article 196 which states patent infringement is a crime and Article 2, paragraph 3, which, from 2002 states that a computer program is a product and therefore that patents can be granted for computer programs (in contrast to many other patent systems in other countries). The patent prosecution procedure under Japanese law is similar to that in most other patent systems. Article 39 states that a person who is the first to file an application for a patent for an invention may obtain that patent, rather than a different person who is the first to invent the same invention. A patent may be granted for an invention if:
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