Trademark at issue	Cited Trademark (three-dimensional trademark)

[Key issue] “Well known” and “unfair purposes” of Article 4, paragraph (1), item (xix) of the Trademark Act.

Court judged that the three-dimensional form (Cited Trademark) of the Defendant’s Product was well-known and famous among consumers as an indicator of the Defendant’s Product, the filing by the plaintiff of the application for registration of the Trademark was based on the purpose of hindering the defendant’s business operation for the Defendant’s Product, and thus the trademark held by the plaintiff falls under Article 4, paragraph (1), item (xix) of the Trademark Act.

[Title of the patent] “IMMUNOCHROMATOGRAPHY TEST DEVICE AND KIT FOR MYCOPLASMA PNEUMONIAE DETECTION”

[Key issue] “Invention described in a publication” (Article 29, paragraph (1), item (iii) of the Patent Act)

Court stated in the decision “…the patent invention is an invention of a product, and thus a comparison is made with an invention of a product described in a publication in considering the inventive step.  Here, it is necessary for a person skilled in the art to be able to make a product on the basis of the description of the publication and the common general knowledge as of the filing of the Patent in order to find that an invention of a product is described in the publication.”

[Title of the patent] “CONSTRUCTIONAL BOARD”

[Key issue] “Finding of the differences between the Invention and the cited invention” (Article 29, paragraph (2) of the Patent Act)

Court stated in the decision “…when a difference between the Invention and the primarily cited invention is to be found, it is reasonable to find the difference between them as a collective structure as a unit from a viewpoint of a solution to the technical problem of the invention.  It is inappropriate to find the differences by particularly finely segmenting them and to determine whether each of the differences could have been easily conceived of without considering the above viewpoint, since the invention for which the inventive step should have been found could not be properly determined and the inventive step could be denied as a result.”

Injunction against copyright infringement, etc.

[Key issue] “Defense of quotation” and “fair practices” (Article 32, paragraph (1) of the Copyright Act)

A case in which, concerning file footage for the press over which a news agency has copyright, the court held that the act of quoting and using the same in a documentary film without indicating the source is not lawful quotation.

Nobel laureate demands higher cancer drug royalties than in their contract which was made in 2006.

The Japanese government is conferring with business leaders and lawyers to establish an international division within the Intellectual Property High Court where cases could be heard in English.

Chinese companies have surged ahead of their U.S. counterparts on a
Nikkei ranking of the top 50 patent filers for artificial intelligence
over the past three years, expanding their presence in the world’s most
prominent high-tech battleground.