In this series, we will introduce a variety of services that will help you start a business effortlessly in Kansai.
In today’s episode, we will introduce Toreru (https://toreru.jp), a cloud trademark registration service that was ranked first in Japan in terms of the number of trademark registrations in 2019.
Toreru makes the conventionally complex and analog trademark registration easy with a simple procedure via the cloud. With Toreru, it has become easier to register your trademark from overseas. It will surely help you register your trademark in Japan! (For an overview of their trademark registration procedure in Japan, please read this article).
We had the pleasure of interviewing Ms. Miyazaki, who is in charge of public relations and general affairs at Toreru, to find out more about the history of Toreru, trademark registrations from overseas, the supports offered to people from other countries, and much more. We hope it will be helpful in registering your trademark in Japan.
Interview with Ms. Kaori Miyazaki from Toreru’s public relations department
Interviewers：Haruki Morikawa, Satoshi Ono
– To start with, could you please tell us about the Toreru service and how it was created.
Toreru is a service that allows you to register a trademark on the web easily. When our founder and president, Mr. Masafumi Miyazaki, started working as a patent attorney in 2014, it was an analog industry. The procedures related to patents and trademarks registration, such as sending documents by fax and e-mailing every single customer one by one, were complicated. So we started to develop Toreru, which made it easier to complete such complicated trademark registration processes by using the cloud.
We have gradually gained supports from our customers, and now we have more than 10,000 users from both companies and individuals. By 2019, we had the highest number of trademark applications in Japan.
– Does Toreru also support the application of trademarks for foreigners?
Yes, we have handled about 500 to 600 cases from abroad. We assist foreign companies in registering their trademarks in Japan, and we also help foreigners who are living in Japan to register their trademarks here. So far, we have received numerous applications from China, Korea, and the US.
– Wow, many people from overseas are using Toreru too!
Yes, for those of you from overseas, it can be challenging to understand the Japanese trademark laws when it comes to registering your trademark in Japan. You may also not know to whom you can rely on for help. With Toreru, you can complete a trademark application having more than 11 steps in 4 easy steps. All you need is to enter the necessary information on the webpage to complete the application process. This not only makes the complicated steps of trademark registration easier to understand but also simplifies the process. Therefore, I think even people from overseas who find it difficult to understand the Japanese trademark registration system will have no difficulty using Toreru.
In addition, if you apply for trademarks from the conventional patent offices, you are required to contact them via e-mail frequently and check each of the documents attached in the e-mail. Therefore, communication can be a major burden in the application processes related to intellectual property, which is in itself already difficult enough to understand.
Because the trademark registration can be completed by simply entering the necessary information on the Toreru website, overseas applicants would feel these processes much more straightforward.
Furthermore, Toreru is not only a cloud service. You can consult with experts via e-mail or phone if you have any questions. We also offer consultations in English, so feel free to contact our expert even if you do not speak Japanese.
– Because the language barrier is a huge problem when doing business in Japan, it is very reassuring that people can get help in English if they need it.
That’s true. Even if Toreru has a perfect UI or if the trademark applications are completed automatically by entering information on the website, we feel that it would be inconvenient if you do not have a patent office where you can consult with a specialist for any additional questions you may have on registering a trademark. Therefore, Toreru values in creating a service that provides reassurance through human interactions in the registration processes.
– What are the differences between the application processes for trademark registration in Japan from abroad and applying from Japan?
If you are not from Japan, you will have a little bit more operational processes in the registration process. Specifically, if you are a Japanese, you can make your application in Japanese as it is, but if you are a foreigner, in addition to the information in your native language, it is necessary to include all information in Japanese katakana characters. Owing to this additional paperwork process, we charge an extra overseas fee for applications from abroad. However, our prices are more reasonable than those of other patent offices, and we believe that our service is easy to use for foreign start-up companies.
Also, in terms of support for overseas clients, when your trademark application is approved, you will receive a registration certificate from the Japan Patent Office. Toreru can ship the actual certificate to your overseas office, so you can be confident in using our service. Besides, Toreru accepts credit card payments, which means you can reduce the overseas remittance fees.
– Finally, what are your future plans in terms of providing services to foreign companies and foreigners residing living in Japan?
Presently, our website is not as foreign friendly as we would like it to be because our website in itself does not support English. Therefore, we are thinking about making our website multilingual.
Also, although we currently accept applications only from foreign countries to Japan, there are many people who would like to apply for trademarks from Japan to other countries. Therefore, in the future, we would like to consider the possibility of handling applications from Japan to overseas through the Toreru service.
[After the interview]
In this episode, we introduced Toreru, a cloud trademark registration service. Intellectual property laws are often complex and daunting in itself, and if you’re unfamiliar with the language used, it will be much harder. However, Toreru not only allows you to apply for a trademark in a simple step via the web but also makes you feel assured by responding to your inquiries in English.
If you are considering a trademark application in Japan, why not use Toreru!?
Toreru website: https://toreru.jp
