Patent Case Law and Intellectual Property Practice Blog

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

* No “monopoly benefit”!! ⇒ Claim (appeal) dismissed. “Even if, as the appellant argues, the solvent fractionation method entails danger and may sometimes cause serious accidents, … it is difficult to find that, through the exclusionary effect of the patent right, the appellee ex

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む Article information Article type: Reports and activities Categories: Patents Topics: Inventive step, Numerical limitations and parameters, Examination and appeal practice First published on this website: 2026-10-16 Display and classification checked: 2026-10-17 Trial and Appeal Practitioners Study Group Report 2024 — Theme 2 (Chemistry 1) [Inventive step in parameter and numerically limited inventions] When can a numerical range not express

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む Article information Article type: Publication review Categories: Other foreign jurisdictions Topics: Well-known and famous marks, Confusion First published on this website: 2026-10-16 Display/classification checked: 2026-10-19 [Article / Austrian Trademarks] Protection of well-known trademarks and unfair use through packaging imitation: Lessons from the Jägermeister case (遠藤華英, Patent, November 2025) A judgment of the Austrian Supreme Court

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む Article information Article type: Case note Categories: Trademarks Topics: Distinctiveness First published on this website: 2026-10-16 Display and classification checked: 2026-10-17 Case information: Reiwa 6 (Gyo-Ke) No. 10058 [Trademarks] IP High Court, Reiwa 6 (Gyo-Ke) No. 10058 (Judge Hibiki Shimizu) Three-dimensional shape of a support base for a dental model → Registration refused under Article 3(1)(iii); Article 3(2) not satisfied. (E

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む Article information Article type: Case note Categories: Patents Topics: Examination and appeal practice First published on this website: 2026-10-16 Display and classification checked: 2026-10-17 Case information: Heisei 10 (Gyo-Ke) No. 82 Tokyo High Court, Heisei 10 (Gyo-Ke) No. 82 — Semiconductor device (Judge Shinohara) TI v. Fujitsu *The court recognized “identity” under Article 39(1) and held the patent invalid. (Excerpts from the judgm

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む Article information Article type: Case note Categories: Patents Topics: Examination and appeal practice First published on this website: 2026-10-16 Display and classification checked: 2026-10-17 Case information: Heisei 6 (Gyo-Ke) No. 243 Tokyo High Court, Heisei 6 (Gyo-Ke) No. 243 — Buddhist altar (Judge Minoru Takeda) *For applications filed on the same day (Article 39(2)), it is not enough that the other invention is identical when viewe

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む Article information Article type: Case note Categories: Trademarks, Unfair competition law, Other Japanese law Topics: Trademark use, Trade secrets, Contracts First published on this website: 2026-10-16 Display and classification checked: 2026-10-17 Case information: Reiwa 5 (Wa) No. 829 [Claim for contractual penalties] Osaka District Court, Reiwa 5 (Wa) No. 829 (Judge Matsuami) The defendant had been a franchisee but terminated the contra