Patent Case Law and Intellectual Property Practice Blog

Explore existing articles on AI and intellectual property, including rights relating to voice and IP strategy in the AI era.

Explore articles on damages, injunctions and proof of infringement. The relevant considerations differ across legal fields and cases; consult the individual articles and their sources.

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む [Article / Unfair competition] Relationship between “confusion” and “business interests” under Unfair Competition Prevention Act Article 2(1)(i) (横山久芳, Patent, October 2023) 1. Interpreting “confusion in the broad sense” Item (i) includes both narrow confusion (mistaken belief in identical source) and broad confusion (mistaken belief in a relationship between sources). Since item (ii) was created, regulation of dilution/free riding without

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む [Article / Unfair competition law] Remedies for Indications Misleading as to Quality, etc.—Including a Comparison with Similar Provisions in the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations and the Antimonopoly Act (足立勝, Patent Supplement, October 2023) 1. Comparison with the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations and the Antimonopoly Act (1) Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading R

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む [Article / Personality rights, etc.] On the legal protection of voiceprints (大塚理彦, Patent, May 2025) 1. Personality rights and “voiceprint rights” Under current law, portrait rights are recognized on the basis of the right to pursue happiness under Article 13 of the Constitution. 2. Publicity rights The Supreme Court’s Pink Lady decision recognized the right to use exclusively the customer-attracting power of portraits and the like. 3. Copy

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む [Unfair Competition Prevention Act] Osaka District Court, Case No. 2024 (Wa) 12861 [Chidoriya] (Presiding Judge Matsuami) *Status as an indication of goods or business denied. The business lineage derives integrally from the business at issue, and the plaintiff makes commercial use of its continuity with that business. ⇒ From the time the plaintiff came to handle that business in the Kinki region until the present, consumers, including thos

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む [Unfair Competition Prevention Act / Trade secrets, etc.] Osaka District Court, Case No. 2023 (Wa) 12720 [Building component: K-type frame] (Presiding Judge Matsuami) <1> No grounds for return of retirement benefits Although defendant A made statements expressing a wish for the plaintiff's employees to work for the defendant company, no facts were found showing statements actively soliciting or poaching them to change jobs. The confidential

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む [Unfair Competition Prevention Act / Notification of false facts] IP High Court, Case No. 2024 (Ne) 10043 [R badge] (Presiding Judge Masuda) ⇒ Does not constitute notification of false facts. 1. The portions conveying the fact itself that separate litigation was filed and conveying a request for reexamination do not notify any false facts. 2. The portion said to point out patent infringement also does not refer definitively to the fact of i

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む [Unfair Competition Prevention Act / Imitation of configuration] Tokyo District Court, Case No. 2024 (Wa) 70219 (Presiding Judge Sugiura) (Translation of the quoted judgment) "… At least difference 3 cannot be described as a trivial difference, and therefore they cannot be described as substantially identical in configuration." Assessment of difference 3 (the external rear pocket, "ルーポケット") ● The defendant's product has an external pocket o

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む [Copyright] Case No. 2025 (Ne) 10063 "Mark Gonzales / Angel" (Presiding Judge Moritomi) (= First instance: Tokyo District Court, Case No. 2023 (Wa) 70127, Presiding Judge Shibuya) <Applicable law> Japanese law applies to copyright protected in Japan, and U.S. law applies to copyright protected in the United States. <Work made for hire under U.S. law denied> The works constitute neither works made for hire under U.S. copyright law nor works