[Unfair Competition Prevention Act / Notification of false facts]
Updated: 4 hours ago
Article information
Categories: Unfair competition law
Topics: False allegations
Published on this website: 2026-09-29
[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 infringement, but conveys the history of the dispute before litigation.
3. The statement that "there has been no response to date" differs from the facts strictly speaking. In context, however, it can be understood as an exaggerated expression of the absence of a response acknowledging payment of appropriate consideration; this point alone does not establish notification of false facts.
4. Given the nature of litigation, it is uncertain whether the claim will ultimately be upheld, and recipients of the notice can also understand this.
+ "When the first-instance defendant Mobility filed the separate litigation, it had not affixed revenue stamps to the complaint … and withdrew that litigation after the first-instance plaintiff's initial public offering was cancelled … However, these circumstances do not mean that the acts of notification described above themselves amounted to notification of false facts."
+ No tort established either.
As the appellate and first-instance courts differed on whether there was notification of false facts, a delicate determination involving legal evaluation was required. The court therefore held that the first-instance plaintiff could not be said to have been able to know that the claims in this action lacked a factual or legal basis, and that filing this action did not constitute a tort.
*The first-instance judgment—Tokyo District Court, Cases No. 2021 (Wa) 22564 and 2022 (Wa) 16085—stated: "No circumstances are found that would provide a basis for concluding that the defendants could have specifically recognized, by the time of the notifications, that the patent would be invalidated. … At that time … no allegation of invalidity whatsoever had been made …" It held that the facts were false because of invalidity, but that there was no negligence.
(Quotations are translations.)
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