Article 36(6)(i) stipulates so called support requirements which requires that the invention for which a patent is sought is described in the specification to obtain a patent. For instance, regarding chemical-related application, in obtaining an effective patent right compatibility of support requirements often becomes an issue in addition to novelty and inventive step.
 You can find in a previous judicial precedent example stating that "whether or not the description of claims complies with the support requirements should be decided by reviewing whether or not the invention described in the claims is in the range where a person skilled in the art of the invention can recognize that he/she is able to solve the problem of the invention in accordance with the description of a specification, or, even though there is no description and indication, whether or not the invention described in the claims is in the range where a person skilled in the art of the invention can recognize that he/she is able to solve the problem of the invention in consideration of common knowledge in the technical field at the time of filing the application" (Intellectual Property High Court Decision of November 11, 2005, the year of 2005 [administrative litigation case, the first instance] No. 10042).
 In this News Letter, we introduce recent two judicial precedents in which the compatibility of support requirements is contested.

 
(1) Court decision of June 8, 2017, the year of 2016 [administrative litigation case, the first instance] No. 10147
 This patent is to obtain tomato-containing beverage having rich taste and sweetness like fruit tomato and suppressing acidity of tomato, and of which Claim 1 is "A tomato-containing beverage, characterized by a sugar content being 9.4 to 10.0, a sugar acid ratio being 19.0 to 30.0 and the total content of glutamic acid and aspartic acid being 0.36 to 0.42 wt.%." A plurality of embodiments and comparative examples showing various combinations of different values of sugar content, acidity, pH and viscosity as well as results of sensory evaluation about each flavor are described in the specification.
 The decision of Intellectual Property High Court is as follows.
 Generally, various elements such as not only sweetness and sourness but also saltiness, bitterness, good taste (umami), pungent taste, astringency, rich flavor and aroma can be related to a flavor of the food and drink. Meanwhile, it is not described in the specification of this patent that only the sugar content, sugar acid ratio and the content of glutamic acid and the like have significant impacts on the "sweetness," "sourness" and "rich" flavor. Also, components, except for the sugar content, sugar acid ratio and the content of glutamic acid and the like, and physical properties are not made the same conditions in the description of the embodiments and the comparative examples. For this reason, it is unlikely that a person skilled in the art of the invention can understand that it is not required to specify other elements except for the range of the sugar content, sugar acid ratio and the content of glutamic acid and the like in order to obtain the flavor having rich taste and sweetness like fruit tomato and suppressing acidity of tomato, therefore it is unlikely that a person skilled in the art of the invention can immediately understand, from the result of flavor evaluation test described in the specification, the technical meaning of the relationship between the stipulated range of the sugar content, sugar acid ratio and the content of glutamic acid and the like, and the flavor having rich taste and sweetness like fruit tomato and suppressing acidity of tomato, which is considered as the available effect.
 Furthermore, an evaluation guideline is not integrated among 12 panelists (test subjects) regarding the flavor evaluation test, and also, the method of comprehensive evaluation by simply adding the average of scores given by all the panelists is not considered reasonable.
 In this way, it is unlikely that a person skilled in the art of the invention can understand that the acquisition of the flavor having rich taste and sweetness like fruit tomato and suppressing acidity of tomato is supported by the description of specification of this patent in which the sugar content, sugar acid ratio and the content of glutamic acid and the like are in the numerical range described in Claim 1. Therefore, the description of the claims does not comply with the support requirements.
 
(2) Court decision of August 8, 2017, the year of 2016 [administrative litigation case, the first instance] No. 10269
 This patent is to provide a sweetener composition having sweetness, that is lower calorific value than sucrose and resembles sucrose, high safety, and capable of suppressing calorific value. It was described in Claim 2 at issue that "Extracts of Momordicae grosvenori for preparing a sweetener composition, containing mogroside V, mogroside IV, 11-oxo-mogroside V and siamenoside I, the total content amount being 35 wt.% or more." It was described in the specification, not as embodiments of extracts of Momordicae grosvenori, that each of the high-purity four ingredients has (70 to 500 times) stronger sweetness than sucrose and the degree of divergence between such elements and sucrose is small on every nine elements of taste. Also, it was described in the specification that samples H to J, in which total contents of four ingredients are 35.10 to 60.80 wt.%, show an excellent sweet taste quality resembling the same of sucrose.
 The decision of the Intellectual Property High Court is as follows.
 A person skilled in the art of the invention who reads the specification of this patent can understand from its description that despite of whether the embodiments are extracts of Momordicae grosvenori or not, all of four ingredients have stronger sweetness than sucrose and the excellent sweet taste quality resembling sucrose. Then, even if total contents of four ingredients are more than 60.80 wt.%, since any of the four ingredients is just enhanced, a person skilled in the art of the invention can understand that it is capable of acquiring sweetness equivalent to sucrose even in a smaller amount than sucrose and shows the excellent sweet taste quality resembling sucrose.
 In this way, the invention described in Claim 2 is in the range where a person skilled in the art of the invention can recognize that he/she is able to solve the problem of the invention in accordance with the description of the specification of this patent. Therefore, the description of claims complies with the support requirements.
 
 Recently, in Japan, the compatibility of support requirements is more severely determined.  If it is desirable to pursue patent right in Japan, we recommend taking into account the determination standard presented in the judicial precedent introduced in this News Letter, when you prepare the application to be filed in your country.