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Time Validation Service
Time validation service for correctly verifying a date such as a date of commercial transaction and a date of an administrative procedure is gradually prevailing in Japan as in other countries. Some venture enterprise related to intellectual properties has already started offer of the service for validating a date when encrypted electronic data on contents of a work, a project, or an invention has come into existence and for storing their originals. (From Nihon Keizai Shimbun Evening News, October 8, 2002) Time Business Study Group of Japanese Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications forecast that the current time validation service market of 13,400 million yen will expand up to approximately 150 billion yen in 2005. Although there are still some problems with such time validation service including a problem of setting the standard time to be used as reference time, the time validation service may possibly become useful in giving proof of a fact of prior use, proof of the date of invention in the United States or the like. If such time validation service market tends to keep expanding with enhancement of competence of evidence in domestic and international areas, it is expected that in the near future, it will become necessary to utilize the time validation service in addition to the patent system or the like in order to ensure to reliably protect own intellectual properties including inventions and trademarks. |
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