New types of Trademarks can now be Registered @ The Japan Patent Office (JPO)

Japan is to expand its trademark protection to cover an additional five categories of non-traditional trademarks from April 1^st 2015, namely,

Motion Mark
Hologram Mark
Color Per Se Mark
Sound Mark, and
Position Mark.

Applications for registration of these new types of trademarks will be accepted by the Japan Patent Office from 12:00 (midnight) of April 1 with no transitional actions. And, sounds and colors can be protected only if they can function as trademarks. For more details refer to the below JPO websites,

http://www.jpo.go.jp/seido/s_shouhyou/new_shouhyou.htm

http://www.jpo.go.jp/seido/s_shouhyou/pdf/new_shouhyou/pamphlet.pdf

Source: JPO

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