Patent Case Law and Intellectual Property Practice Blog

[Kirin Foods] (Presiding Judge Nakadaira) Falls under Article 4(1)(xi) of the Trademark Act. ⇒ Invalid. <1> Separate observation of the figurative and textual portions

Tokyo District Court, Case No. 2024 (Wa) 70219 (Presiding Judge Sugiura) (Translation of the quoted judgment)

[Direct Marketing Agency] (Presiding Judge Honda) *Falls under Articles 3(1)(iii) and 4(1)(xvi). ⇒ Refusal. • "Direct marketing" is listed in dictionaries as an established expression meaning "a sales promotion method that provides product information directly to consumers through various media."

Trademark at issue: "HIKKY" (standard characters) Cited trademarks: "HIKKI," etc. ⇒ Not similar

Tokyo District Court, Case No. 2023 (Wa) 70685 (Presiding Judge Sugiura) The three perspectives prescribed by Article 35(4) of the Patent Act as amended in 2004:

[Hinge] (Presiding Judge Hasegawa) *Inventive step recognized A configuration for solving the problem of the primary cited invention cannot be changed without a particular reason. (What constitutes a particular reason?)

[Electric coffee maker] (Presiding Judge Matsuami) Invention 1 at issue has a configuration in which the heater is turned off when the water temperature inside the boiler reaches 90–100°C, and steam pressure caused by boiling is not generated.

[Unsecured funding system for credit card merchants through the purchase of undetermined future credit receivables] (Presiding Judge Takahashi) ● Meaning of "credit card company" (element A)

[Portable information communication device] (Presiding Judge Hasegawa) = Cases No. 2025 (Ne) 10051, 2025 (Ne) 10047, 2025 (Ne) 10040, Tokyo District Court No. 2022 (Wa) 70131, etc.

[Passenger conveyor] (Presiding Judge Nakadaira) The plaintiff argued that "the cited invention … has already solved the problem by means for solving the problem that differ from those of the claimed invention." However, this judgment held that "whether it has already been solved by another, different means of solution is unrelated to the existence of motivation."