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“Small but powerful” is the characteristic of Japanese design. In 2016, among all the foreign countries, Japan had the largest number of design patent applications in Taiwan. Besides, it is worth paying attention to that the number of design patents which are applied for or issued each year in Japan is three times as many as in Taiwan. Therefore, in order to keep track of the development of Japanese design, searching Japanese design patents effectively is important for the design industry in Taiwan. In this study, two approaches—“classification” and “keyword”—are adopted for exploring the search rules of Japanese design patent in J-PlatPat system. It is discovered that Japanese classification for industrial designs is divided into “Old Design Classification” and “Design Classification/D-term”, which are used according to the application date. In addition, Locarno classification has been applied to Japanese design patent from 2014. On the other hand, the searching range of keyword is limited by the data coverage of “Japanese design patent text database”. Analysis suggests that “Title” is a proper retrieval item for searching Japanese design patent. It is expected that this study can help the patent practitioners and designers search Japanese design patent more effectively. |