[Unfair Competition Prevention Act]

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Article information

Article type: Case note

Display and classification checked: 2026-09-30

Categories: Unfair competition law

Topics: Indications of goods or business / Well-known and famous marks

Published on this website: 2026-09-29

[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 those in the Kinki region, recognize the indication as referring to the ancestral business of both the plaintiff and the defendant, or to the totality of businesses arising from it, including the defendant.

It is therefore difficult to recognize it as functioning exclusively as the plaintiff's indication of goods or business. ("Chidoriya" does not belong to the plaintiff alone.)

(The conclusion is not changed by arrangements among relatives.)

https://lnkd.in/gSGJkZdB

https://lnkd.in/gaXy5Chi

hanrei-pdf-95269.pdf — courts.go.jp

Originally posted on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7510139389264654336/

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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: replaced verified Japanese-script personal names with Roman-letter forms in this English article and its navigation. Legal analysis and original publication date unchanged.

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