Osaka District Court, Reiwa 6 (Wa) No. 7193 — Article transport equipment (Judge Matsuami)
Updated: 6 days ago
Article information
Article type: Case note
Category: Patents
Topics: Employee inventions
Published on this website: 2026-10-08
Display/classification checked: 2026-10-12
Osaka District Court, Reiwa 6 (Wa) No. 7193 — Article transport equipment (Judge Matsuami)
⇒ The claim for compensation for an employee invention was dismissed.
1. The process of formulating and operating the regulations
Following the 2016 amendment to the Patent Act and publication of the guidelines, the defendant consulted with the labor union and explained the reward system and calculation method. When revising the regulations, it also solicited opinions from all employees and responded to the plaintiff's opinions, thus undertaking careful and sincere procedures, which were reasonable.
2. Awareness of the regulations
The regulations were available for viewing at all times through the internal system and were also explained in training for new employees. The plaintiff had received rewards during employment and was in a position to understand the system.
3. Content of the regulations
The performance reward system is one in which the business division and the intellectual property department evaluate performance based on objective indicators and determine grades, and inventors are also assured an opportunity to state their opinions. It is therefore not unreasonable.
(Excerpt from the judgment, translated)
“It is doubtful whether the appropriateness of the amount of compensation, which in itself may be considered to be left to private autonomy, is necessarily included among the perspectives for determining unreasonableness prescribed in Article 35(5) of the Patent Act. Even assuming that it could be one factor for consideration, the case would be different, for example, if the regulations provided only for payment of small lump sums as application and registration rewards without distributing the profits subsequently obtained by the company through working the patent rights. The detailed rules at issue, however, evaluate the economic value of the patent rights, etc. relating to their working from various perspectives, such as contribution to profit and exclusion of competitors, and provide for payment of corresponding performance rewards in stages. It is difficult to find any point that would make them unreasonable.”
In conclusion, because the regulations at issue are not unreasonable, the claim for statutory reasonable benefits under Article 35(7) of the Patent Act, which presupposes that those regulations do not apply, is without merit.
Update history
This history records actual publication, display, and classification changes made on this site.
2026-10-08: Published an English translation of the Japanese article on this website.
2026-10-12: corrected Wix category and topic-tag references to the existing English labels; added stable management IDs; completed missing management lines; completed canonical, hreflang, and paired search-index links. The original article text was not changed.
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