[Design] IP High Court, Case No. 2024 (Gyo-ke) 10108

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Article information

Article type: Case note

Display and classification checked: 2026-09-30

Categories: Designs

Topics: Similarity of designs / Partial designs / Novelty

Published on this website: 2026-09-29

[Design] IP High Court, Case No. 2024 (Gyo-ke) 10108

[Packaging container / Partial design] (Presiding Judge Masuda)

★ A judgment clarifying whether a partial design and an overall design can be registered as related designs, and the difference in the scope of comparison in assessing novelty!!

<Comparison with the principal design: related design, Article 10(1)>

The design in the application is a partial design covering only the flange, whereas the principal design is an overall design covering the entire storage container. They therefore differ greatly in use, function, position, size, extent, shape, etc., and are not similar.

⇒ Cannot be registered as a related design.

<Comparison with the cited design: novelty, Article 3(1)(iii)>

Since registration as a related design is unavailable, Article 10(2) does not apply to the registered design at issue, and it is not excluded from the cited designs.

⇒ The portion in the application and the corresponding portion of the cited design share the characteristic form of the flange and are similar.

*The court held that, when comparing an overall design with a partial design, the scope of comparison differs between the similarity assessment for related designs (comparing the whole with the part) and that for novelty (comparing with the corresponding portion of the cited design), and there is nothing improper about the determinations differing.

https://lnkd.in/gcYzUTgk

https://lnkd.in/g6jgFHSe

hanrei-pdf-94149.pdf — courts.go.jp

Originally posted on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7510136873969729536/

Related articles and decisions

Shared topic: Similarity of designs — [Article / Designs] The boundary of similarity assessment between partial and whole designs (Design Committee, Patent, April 2025)

Shared topic: Similarity of designs — [Design] IP High Court, Case No. 2024 (Ne) 10086

Shared topic: Novelty — [Article / Chinese patents] Points to note when claiming priority in China—focusing on a Chinese Supreme Court judgment (Jun Lin, Chunfeng Hu, Patent, December 2023)

Updates and corrections

This log starts on 30 September 2026. Display and classification checks are distinct from a review of the legal analysis.

2026-09-30 — Presentation update: added the article type, this change log and a link to consultation options. The existing article text was preserved.

2026-10-01 | Name notation: changed Hu Chunfeng and Lin Jun to the verified Roman-letter forms Chunfeng Hu and Jun Lin in the English text and navigation. Names verified against their 2015 coauthored Patent article and the JPAA English contents. No change to legal analysis.

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