Patent Case Law and Intellectual Property Practice Blog

★ Application for a provisional injunction based on violation of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act: a case denying patent infringement by finding that the medical-use invention was not worked under an “exclusively” standard and that, on the patentee’s argument that a certain

The trademark at issue: “美容医局” (Biyō Ikyoku; designated services: employment placement and others). The relevant consumers are “physicians in cosmetic surgery or cosmetic dermatology.” Physicians with no possibility of changing jobs to cosmetic surgery or cosmetic dermatology are

“Exhibit Ko 1 does not describe any need to ascertain the position or size of the modified region relative to the principal surface of the processing region. … It merely suggests that, by using an infrared image sensor, reflected infrared light (laser light) is used to adjust foc

* Even if a defect in the divisional procedure for a patent application has been overlooked, a “correction” to clarify an ambiguous statement cannot be made to cure it. If a defect in an amendment or division is overlooked and the patent is registered, the situation may become ir

Violation of Article 5(ii) of the Design Act (a design likely to cause confusion with an article pertaining to another person’s business). ① The padlock attached at the upper center of the design has the characteristics of Hermès’ H trademark, Registration No. 5864813, which styl

“Exhibit Ko 1 has no modified region in the thickness direction of the substrate. Accordingly, there is no need to ascertain the position or size of a modified region in the substrate’s thickness direction, and a person skilled in the art who encounters Exhibit Ko 1 has no … moti

* A trade secret allegedly embodied in experimental equipment cannot be said to have been “disclosed.” ⇒ Claim (appeal) dismissed. In response to the argument that the trade secret could not be acquired without the appellants’ involvement, the court turned that argument back on t

Numerical rounding and the doctrine of equivalents The issue was whether the appellee’s product, with a molecular weight of 699.91848, satisfied the numerical limitation of a molecular weight of “700 or more.” ⇒ Ultimately, because the applicant had “deliberately” drawn the line

In response to the allegation of breach of the obligation to achieve the sales plan, termination and mistake were asserted, but neither was accepted. The contract did not specify the efficacy of the products, their mechanism of action in the body, the amount of hydrogen generated

“The means for solving the problem … ‘oxygen supply means for supplying micro-nanobubbles containing oxygen into the second containment tank,’ unlike the supply means for the first containment tank, … does not include supply means that supplies micro-nanobubbles to which ozone ha