164). In case amendments were not made, or the examiner reported that reasons for refusal still remain, a group of three or five qualified trial examiners (Article 136) conduct the trial by communicating with the applicant in letters (Article 145, paragraph 2). A person dissatisfied at the trial may demand a retrial (Article 171), or may sue the commissioner of the Japan Patent Office in quest of the patent (Article 178 and 179). Trial for invalidation Anyone may demand the commissioner of the patent office a trial for invalidation of a patent against the patentee (Article 123). A group of three or five trial examiners (Article 136) conduct the trial, gathering the parties to the patent office (Article 145, paragraph 1 and 3). The patentee may demand restriction of claims, or correction of errors or ambiguity (Article 134bis, added in 2003) to avoid the invalidation. A lawsuit against patent infringement may be suspended until a trial decision of the patent office has become final and conclusive (Article 168, paragraph 2). Patentability Summary of the rules on patentability is as follows. More detailed description is found in "Examination Guidelines for Patent and Utility Model in Japan" with summaries of significant court decisions. Patentable subject matter Novelty Sharing the same rule as other jurisdictions, Japanese patent law does not grant exclusionary rights to existing technologies. Article 29(1) of Patent Act stipulates this point; an inventor may not obtain a patent for inventions that were known to the public ("publicly known") (Item (i)), inventions that were publicly worked ("publicly used") (Item (ii)) or inventions that were described in a distributed publication or made publicly available through an electric telecommunication line (Item (iii)), in Japan or a foreign country prior to the filing of the patent application. Inventive step Where at the time of the application a person ordinarily skilled in the field of art to which the invention belongs (a “person skilled in the art”) would have been able to easily make the invention based on a technology falling under any of the items under Article 29(1) of the Patent Act (that is, an invention involving prior art or that is publicly known), the invention cannot be patented (Patent Act Article 29(2)). For this decision to be made, in the abstract, an accurate assessment is firstly to be made of the standard of art in the field of art to which the invention