Patent Case Law and Intellectual Property Practice Blog

Read the Japanese version / 日本語版を読む [Trademarks] Reiwa 6 (Gyo-Ke) 10101, “SCANTECH” (Presiding Judge 増田) Invalidation not established (Trademark Act Article 4(1)(x), (xv)) Well-known status of the cited “SCANTEC” mark: Not established (1) Domestic market share The plaintiff’s data concerned its products collectively, not the products bearing the cited mark alone. Lower-priced “WEBSENSOR” and other products did not bear the cited mark and did not establish its well-known statu

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 [Trademark] Case No. 2025 (Gyo-ke) 10066 [AFURI / Afuri] (Presiding Judge Hasegawa) ⇒ Similar (violation of Article 4(1)(xi) of the Trademark Act). (1) Similarity of concept: The word "AFURI" has a certain degree of recognition in the plaintiff's ramen business. In relation to manufacturing and selling alcoholic beverages, however, sufficient advertising and sales results cannot be confirmed, so it cannot be said to give rise to the concept

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 [Trademark] Case No. 2025 (Gyo-ke) 10066 "AFURI / 阿夫利" (Presiding Judge Hasegawa) The plaintiff (AFURI) had brought a trademark infringement action concerning the sake "雨降 (Afuri)" sold by the defendant (Yoshikawa Jozo). The defendant (Yoshikawa Jozo) requested a trial for invalidation of the plaintiff's "AFURI / 阿夫利" trademark in the alcoholic beverages field, asserting similarity to the cited trademark "阿夫利大山." ⇒ The Japan Patent Office a